


Right now, you and I are clumsy (but you're getting closer to me)

by zimriya



Series: The last flame of my life (a Homin ABO AU) [7]
Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, M/M, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mpreg, Multiple Orgasms, alpha changmin, just b/c there will be heat sex, omega yunho, this one goes straight in filthy i'm not even sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-05-09 03:04:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 99,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14707908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zimriya/pseuds/zimriya
Summary: They’re on the stage in Tokyo to close the show for A-Nation when Yunho looks across the stage at Changmin and thinks,one, I’m probably going to have to serve my country next year, and two, I want to give Changminnie a fuckingfamily. Canon AU.





	1. dew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The direct sequel to **[My heart has changed after meeting you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13546152/chapters/31079514)**. You don’t need to read these in order, but there will be spoilers and a lot more will make sense if you read (at least) that one first. Takes place immediately following **[All the cells in my body are screaming it’s you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14404932)** and **[The heart fluttering feeling](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14404932)**.
> 
> Title taken from 평행선 by TVXQ to continue our song lyric theme. (This is one of my favorite lines and favorites song and of course it had to be the title for Baby take 2)
> 
> Betaed by Hexmen and Kinah as always. Both of them are the real most valued players. All other mistakes are my own.
> 
> [PRIMER](http://zimriya.tumblr.com/aboau)

**1\. Dew**

\--

They’re on the stage in Tokyo to close the show for A-Nation when Yunho looks across the stage at Changmin and thinks, _one, I’m probably going to have to serve my country next year, and two, I want to give Changminnie a fucking_ family.

Only, no.

He wants to give _himself_ a fucking family. Changminnie might not even _want_ a family. In fact, Yunho has taken great joy and advantage of that assumption. He’s been announcing just how many, many children he may or may not want at the most inopportune moments simply for how red in the face Changmin goes every single time. Even-- _especially_ \--in those situations where such a thing wouldn’t even be possible, since the only thing keeping Changmin in the conversation is the fact that he’s impaled on Yunho’s dick.

But it’s hard not to look at Changmin, already drenching his tour costume despite both of the open sides and smelling like an absolute _wet dream_ (pun very much intended) and not, well. Dream.

“You’re making a stupid face,” Changmin says, in Korean, to the swell of Yunho’s ear backstage as their mid-show VCR starts blasting in the background and their stylists descend upon them holding metallic costume pieces.

Yunho finishes chugging from his water bottle and blinks. “What--”

“Your face.” Changmin looks at him with glinting, considering eyes.

Yunho stares back at him, still blinking. “Are you lost again?” he settles for, because Changmin running off down the backstage with Jungmin-hyung chasing after him shouting got captured by at least five of the cameras following them around documenting their day to day, and will no doubt feature on several DVDs.

Changmin’s ears flame. “Shut up,” he says.

Yunho grins at him, and lets his stylists divest him of the first costume.

“But your face,” Changmin says eventually, also disrobing.           

Yunho’s going to have to run to make it to his place underneath the stage.

“Is it because you don’t actually speak Japanese?”

All thoughts of the time it’ll take Yunho to get in position (and just how far into the VCR footage they’ve gotten) leave Yunho’s head. He sputters, grateful for the hands helping him into the vest part of the costume.

Changmin just grins, still topless, before pulling on his own vest and jacket. He looks hot, both in how Yunho wants to put his mouth on him immediately, and in how he’s practically dripping with perspiration.

Their staff are gesturing at them; Yunho needed to be on the platform two minutes ago.

“Yah,” Yunho tries, even as one of their lighting guys grumbles over the state of their light up armbands.

Changmin just keeps grinning, and fucking _shoos_ him. ‘ _Hurry_.’

Yunho practically runs for his place under the stage, annoyed.

The tour VCR is roaring in the background, the fans are screaming in the foreground, and _I want to give Changminnie a fucking_ family is really secondary to the show itself.

\--

Yunho goes shirtless under his hoodie to the airport. Changmin pulls on a sky blue button down and rolls out of their apartment looking absolutely sinful, and it’s all Yunho can think about. He was feeling too lazy for more than an undershirt; was too tired from the night spent out talking and catching up with their staff and dancers before their trek back to Korea for the most of the rest of the year. Changmin’s got most of his neck and collarbones showing for how low his neckline is, and Yunho’s nipples are already standing to fucking attention.

Yunho stands outside their company car with his sunglasses already on and tries not to whimper too much.

Sungchang-hyung narrows his eyes at him and frowns. “What?” he says.

Changmin’s fiddling with the straps of his backpack; he’s hardly in reach, but Yunho can barely manage to look away. He wants to grab him around the waist and sink his teeth into the entire column of his unfairly pretty neck; he wants to make it irrefutably and irredeemably clear to Lee Jongsoo or whomever that Changmin is _taken_.

Sunchang-hyung snaps a few times in front of Yunho’s glass covered eyes. “Are you still in heat?” he says.

Yunho glowers--“Hyung--” but before he can so much as protest, Changmin is turning towards them both. Yunho’s other half rounds the front of the car to stand basically in between Yunho and their Japanese team leader looking unamused.

Yunho shoves his sunglasses onto the top of his head and pouts. “Hyung,” he says again. “It’s been eleven days.” He tries out a glower.

Instead of being cowed, Sungchang-hyung, if possible, seems even more unimpressed.

“ _Hyung_ ,” Yunho whines. He’s not above whining, it seems. Maybe he is still a little fucked up from his ‘time to give Changminnie babies’ heat?

Changmin’s head tilts to the side, beautiful, unfair, un _blemished_ neck muscles jutting out like a full feast, and Yunho’s breath stutters.

He’s never been in love with a clavicle before, but he thinks he might be now. Or love in general, since he’s pretty sure he’d love every single part of Changmin down to the hairs on the top of his toes. Yunho wants to write an entire love song devoted to _collarbones_.

The man attached to the aforementioned neck is sporting a shit-eating grin.

Yunho has a sinking feeling. “What?” he mutters, embarrassed despite himself. What if Changmin’s somehow developed mind reading powers--maybe that was why his parents, mated as they were, were so fucking in sync all the time. Maybe the side effect of mating someone was fucking _telepathy_ \--and maybe Changmin was getting a play-by-play of the frankly embarrassing love poetry Yunho had been composing about his fucking _clavicle_.

Changmin’s lips are quirked at the corners. “You sort of look a little glassy eyed, Yunho-hyung,” he says finally.

Yunho tips his sunglasses back down protectively and flushes despite himself. “Shut up,” he says.

Changmin takes an easy step towards him, smelling not at all appropriate for a plane.

One of their Japanese staff chokes on air and then mutters something about Jacobson’s.

Yunho doesn’t have time to parse it, because Changmin is stepping into his line of sight. “What’s that?” he says. “I can’t hear you. Can you speak up? Can you not speak _Korean_ either--”

Yunho sputters, even redder in the face. “You try saying rice pudding!” he protests, stumbling slightly over the English. “I have an _accent_. I am from _Gwangju_ \--”

“Oh, I know you have an accent, Yunho-hyung,” says Changmin, stepping even closer and reaching up to touch both palms to Yunho’s blazing cheeks. He didn’t shave this morning.

Yunho’s inner thighs _ache_.

“I love your accent,” Changmin is continuing. His voice is throaty, sinful purr.

Yunho wants the ground to swallow him fucking whole.

“Your accent is lovely _,_ ” Changmin adds in practically a rumble.

Yunho hasn’t heard his voice that low without the help of technology and also three hours of edging. He fucking. _Leaks_.

The garage goes abruptly silent.

Changmin’s pupils dilate.

For a second, Yunho thinks nobody has fucking _noticed,_ but then Sungchang-hyung makes a mortified expression and Ishikawa-san stops packing their bags into the trunk and starts rummaging through their bag pockets in search of probably scent neutralizers.

Shim Asshole Changmin inhales, pupils all the way blown now, and then lets go of one of Yunho’s cheeks so that he can palm another one of Yunho’s cheeks.

Sungchang-hyung throws both hands up and gets into the van, pulling the car door shut behind him.

Yunho hears: “Two minutes,” and “how much shit are we in if we leave them?” and “Yeah, well, Won dickhead can deal with it, since he’s the one who’s leaving next year anyway,” before the fact that Changmin’s got one of his hands on Yunho’s _ass_ registers.

“Your accent is _sexy_ ,” says Changmin.

“My accent is stressful,” Yunho corrects, because you don’t just recover from grammar books and social conditioning and the uncomfortable experience of being told to sounds _smarter_ while talking.

Changmin’s fingers dig into the meat of Yunho’s ass. “Yunho-hyung,” he snaps. “Stop that.”

Yunho’s traitorous body wants to leak some more. He scowls, blushes _again_ , and drops his own hand down to palm Changmin’s ass.

Every muscle in Changmin’s body goes taut.

Yunho blinks, does some quick ‘which part of my body is where’ mental math, and then knocks his sunglasses down onto his nose.

“Yunho-hyung,” manages Changmin with near zero air.

Yunho circles an index finger around what he knows are his own teeth marks.

The window of their car rolls down and Sunchang-hyung says, “Stop groping each other and get in the goddammed car. We have a flight to catch.”

Changmin’s eyes stay locked on Yunho’s.

The sunglasses lose the war to stay on Yunho’s face and clatter to the ground between them with a terrible, maybe breaking sound.

Yunho and Changmin release each other’s asses as if burned.

“Sorry,” Changmin says, bending over to retrieve the sunglasses.

Yunho can tell the moment he realizes where he is, because he goes utterly, utterly still. Yunho just tries not to _whimper_ , instinctual and automatic because Changmin’s face is far too close to his fucking cock.

Sungchang-hyung pokes his head out of the window, sees them, and snorts. “We’re leaving then--Driver-nim--”

Changmin straightens, ears on fire, and pulls open the car door. “Shut up,” he says, waiting for Yunho to get in.

Yunho gets in. His heart is pounding, and he feels a little faint.

Changmin follows after him with minimal blushing.

Sungchang-hyung waits for them to finish buckling in, and then gestures for the driver to drive. They leave the garage behind in moderate silence, and Yunho waits what feels like three minutes before remembering to take his sunglasses back.

“Thanks,” he says, reaching for them without meeting Changmin’s eyes.

Changmin releases the shades but catches Yunho’s fingers, and Yunho uses his other hand to shove the things over top his eyes so that the entire car doesn’t have to see all of the utterly stupid expression on his face.

\--

There is certified, official mail waiting for Yunho when he gets back to his apartment that afternoon, and Kyungjae-hyung takes one look at it, frowns, and then sighs.

Yunho finishes unlacing his sneakers in the foyer, tosses his keys into the conveniently placed bowl that Changmin put in the front hall last time he was over like that would help Yunho stop losing them, and swallows.

“Well… shit,” his manager says.

Yunho eyes the government seal, does some quick mental math, and mirrors Kyungjae-hyung’s sigh. “I guess you’re going to have to let me do the Biennale anyway,” he says.

When Kyungjae-hyung’s brows lift, Yunho picks up what is definitely his enlistment notice.

“In Gwangju,” he says, fingering the seal like he’s not sure he even wants to break it. “There’s no way I’m telling my parents over the phone.” _There’s no way I’m telling my mother over the phone_ , he means. She’d skin him alive. Any and all of the good fortune Yunho’d somehow amassed by bonding with Shim do-no-wrong Changmin would be erased in one horrible, fell swoop.

Kyungjae-hyung sighs again and pulls out his phone. He presses one.

Yunho listens to him appraise Youngmin-seonsaengnim, and decides to get it over with.

He breaks the seal.

Dumps the contents out.

Reviews when they want him.

Frowns.

Yunho goes to hand the letter to Kyungjae-hyung. Kyungjae-hyung should read it, should be ready to offer up all the details when their management finishes fussing over him like Yunho’s gone and contracted some sort of incurable illness instead of simply turned twenty fucking eight.

For some reason, Yunho can’t quite get his fingers to work.

Kyungjae-hyung shoots him a mildly concerned look but keeps speaking. “We can delay it through June,” he says. “We have comeback promotions planned--and we have Japanese schedules--the tour--”

Yunho spares a quick glance to make sure that Kyungjae-hyung has a good grip on the end of his twenties, and then pulls his hand back.

The letter almost drops between them, which Yunho thinks really is fucking apt, but Kyungjae-hyung catches it.

“No, I’m listening,” he says. Then he frowns harder, and mouths, ‘ _Are you okay?_ ’

I have to leave Changminnie for two fucking _years_ , Yunho wants to say, but doesn’t because it is an honor to serve his country, and he is twenty fucking _eight_. He shrugs, not ready to commit, then nods.

“No, I hear you, but the Japanese dates for SM Town have been laid out since January so we can prove that the lack of finality doesn’t really matter--” _‘Are you sure?’_ he mouths at Yunho.

“Yes,” Yunho says out loud this time in case that will somehow make it more real. “I’m going to take a shower. I’m gross.”

He’s afraid he smells something awful, like fear and insecurity and missing Changmin even though the younger man is only ten minutes away seeing to the state of his own Korean apartment.

“Changmin has nothing to do with this,” Kyungjae-hyung says suddenly and sharply, almost as if he’s read Yunho’s mind.

Whatever Youngmin-seonsaengnim is saying next has Yunho’s manager wincing, but the man holds his ground.

“We need to petition,” says Kyungjae-hyung, frowning harder again, but still not looking away from Yunho. “I understand, but Changmin has three more years and hasn’t even gotten the _notice_ \--”

Yunho swallows, suddenly stuck on the math of it--Changmin will get his letter by 2016 and then it’ll be two more miserable years, and that’s even if they still have fans when Yunho comes back in 2017--and goes to leave the room.

His manager stops him, head tilted to one side, even as he’s nodding silently in response as Youngmin-seonsaengnim keeps speaking.

‘ _Shower,_ ’ Yunho mouths. And then, ‘ _Don’t tell Changmin. I’ll tell him_.’

If Kyungjae-hyung can understand him--and can tell that he’s fucking _lying_ \--he’s too busy with Youngmin-seonsaengnim to do more than frown some more at Yunho.

Yunho strips off in the hallway on his way to the bathroom, heart in his throat, and resolves not to think too hard about it.

He goes to SM the next day in a full dress suit, officially submits the paperwork detailing how he can’t be serving his country until July of 2014, and then he takes the train home to Gwangju for the Biennale, trying very hard not to think of the utterly sweet way Changmin kissed him goodbye that morning.

\--

Yunho’s mother takes one look at the notice and starts crying.

Yunho is left sitting across from her with his mouth parted, abject horror smeared across his features. “Mom,” he manages.

His father clears his throat, clearly also affected, but stands so that he can come around the table to clap Yunho on the shoulder a bit. “I’m proud,” he says, and then, looking off towards the pictures lining their walls like he wants to start talking about Yunho’s grandparents, coughs some more. “I’m proud of you, son.”

Now _Yunho_ wants to cry a little.

His mother seems to have composed herself only slightly. “When will you go?” she says finally, sniffling.

Her eyes are wet and her make up is smearing.

Yunho feels glad Jihye hadn’t been home.

“Not until next year, at the earliest,” he says. “The company is going to try to delay it until July, at least.”

That seems to appease his mother slightly, but she still reaches out to take Yunho by the hand.

His father has ended up standing motionless over by their kitchen windows.

His mother’s makeup is still making a mess underneath her eyes.

Yunho fights the urge to stand up and get her a towel himself.

He settles for lifting a brow towards his father.

The man startles, seems to pick up on the situation, and pulls a dish towel off the rack to hand to Yunho’s mother.

She smiles at the both of them and seems to sniffle more. “My boys,” she says.

Yunho makes a watery, broken noise. “Mom,” he says. “I have to do to hair and makeup in a moment.”

His mother just finishes wiping under her eyes, and smiles. She pats him on the shoulder, exchanges an annoyingly knowing look with Yunho’s father, and then turns suddenly serious eyes on Yunho. “Have you told Changminnie yet?”

Yunho _hates_ how well his family _knows_ him. “No,” he tries out, hoping terseness will be his saving grace.

His mother’s eyes narrow.

Yunho is starting to realize he gets all of his stubbornness from his mother; his father is set in his ways and can have a nasty streak for sure, but it’s his mother who was insisting on forty-eight hours of hospital rest and practically snarling to go dress down Jaejoong’s parents over the things the older man had implied during the uglier parts of the lawsuit.

“I didn’t want to bother him,” Yunho settles for.

The fansites had followed Changmin to Saipan, and already they were photos upon photos of the man in a flower crown. It looked like he was having the time of his life, and Yunho hadn’t had the heart to ruin it for him.

His mother is staring at him with a downturned mouth. “Yunho-yah.”

Yunho wants to look away. “Look, mother,” he says, searching for words. “Changmin’s been busy--”

“Your father is _never_ too busy for me,” his mother says, tone even but dangerous.

Yunho winces, well and truly scolded. “Right,” he says. He gets it. He agrees with it. If he asked. If he called. If he figured out how to sort through the mess of tension hiding behind his ribs and _just fucking_ called Changmin, the other man would be threatening to get on the next plane back from Saipan before Yunho so much as breathed funny.

But the thought of that, while comforting and heartwarming and ultimately everything Yunho ever fucking wanted, is somehow more terrifying than the rest of it.

Yunho has been preparing for his enlistment since he was eighteen years old. Mating Changmin? _Meeting_ Changmin? Some part of Yunho can’t fucking believe he got lucky enough to meet the cynical love of his life himself, let alone convince said king cynic to fucking _mate_ him.

“Look, Changmin’ll be back in Seoul eventually and I’ll just tell him then,” Yunho says.

His mother doesn’t look like she believes him, but the doorbell rings before she can argue.

“That’ll be the stylists,” Yunho says, glad for the interruption.

His mother is still looking at him like she wants to keep pushing.

Yunho practically runs to get the door.

\--

Changmin gets home from Saipan with a bloodied-up knee and an airplane’s worth of stubble, and instead of going back to his own apartment like a normal person, he somehow bribes a manager to drop him off at Yunho’s, and then spends the first five minutes on the premises angrily going through the mess that is Yunho’s fridge.

Yunho just stares back at him from where he’d been lounging on his couch watching the episode of Cool Kiz he’d missed while Changmin was fucking his brains out and also being the biggest fucker in all of Japan the other month.

“Your fridge is a disaster--you are a disaster--” Changmin finishes muttering to himself, and Yunho decides to turn off the television because it’s taking all of his self-control not to interject that his being a disaster is worrying because he really ought to learn how to be less of one before he has to go serve his country the next year.

He still doesn’t know how to tell Changmin any of that.

“Changmin-ah,” Yunho tries.

“A whole natural disaster on your own, complete with a _warning_ system,” says Changmin emphatically, and finishes in the kitchen with a long, drawn out sigh. He goes stomping angrily through the apartment still mumbling--something about code blues and reds and greens and several other colors that Yunho’s never even heard of--before settling onto the couch onto Yunho with not much consideration.

Yunho stares up at him and tries to breathe air back into his lungs.

Changmin sighs. “Hyung,” he says.

Yunho drops both hands over top Changmin’s lower back, and then frowns a little at the ridges of his spine. “Did they starve you in Saipan?” he says. That… hadn’t really been what he was trying to say, but. He can’t help but frown at how stick thin Changmin is becoming. Not that he’s not muscled--bulked up from all the sports practice and the tour--but thin and tired and often times frowning.

“Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says, ignoring the question. He snuggles a little more into Yunho’s neck, and after a moment, presses the tiniest of kisses there.

Yunho’s heart starts running what feels like a marathon, and his hip throbs pleasantly. “Did you tan?”

“Tons,” says Changmin. He pauses and frowns. “Don’t tell Manager-hyung.”

Yunho pets along his lower back a bit, before shoving both hands up to touch bare skin. “Manager-hyung isn’t blind,” he points out. He really wants to know if Changmin took advantage of the climate and stripped off--if his next few weeks of Cool Kiz will be significantly better entertainment than watching Lee Jongsoo and Changmin profess their undying love for each other. The man is a beta, is actually really fucking nice, and most recently had taken the time to steal Yunho’s number from Hodong to assure him he meant absolutely no harm by the whole. Love letters on the back of the shirt thing.

Yunho’d shown Changmin who’d blushed like he was dying and then grumbled something about having to have words with Jongsoo-hyung about ownership and relationships etc. etc.

Yunho’d also saved Jongsoo-hyung’s number for safe keeping.

Changmin nips Yunho on the neck. “You’re thinking dumb things,” he says around the mouthful he has of Yunho’s jugular. “You should stop that.”

“I’m actually thinking about you with your top off,” says Yunho dryly, wishing not for the first time that they were just two normal people fallen together because the universe said they were made for each other, and that he could have a bite mark across Changmin’s collarbone like an engagement ring.

Changmin pulls away from Yunho’s neck with a blink, and smirks. Then he shucks out of his t-shirt.

Yunho stares up at him, breath gone. Changmin most definitely tanned in the three days he was gone. The hollow of his throat sits open and clean and unmarked.

Changmin scowls. “Yunho-hyung,” he says. He love taps Yunho on the arm. “You’re not allowed to be all sad that we couldn’t do neck claims when your bite isn’t embarrassing,” he says.

Yunho snorts and shoves his hands down the back of Changmin’s pants.

His other half sputters, kicks out mindlessly, and then whines when Yunho strokes over his mate mark a few times. “Yunho-hyung,” he protests.

Yunho hums and keeps petting him. “Mine is so embarrassing,” he says.

Changmin snorts. “It is _not_ \--”

“Mine is possessive,” Yunho concedes. “It’s like way too close to my dick, Changdol-ah. Jihye hasn’t managed to stop laughing about it for months--”

Changmin makes a face. “Ew, gross, your sister knows about your mating mark--”

“The Court of Seoul knows about my mating mark, Changmin-ah,” Yunho points out dryly. “And yours. There are even photos--”

Changmin lifts his head off of Yunho’s chest and shoves his own hand down the front of Yunho’s sweatpants like a heat-seeking missile. He bypasses Yunho’s unfortunately interested dick and settles for circling Yunho’s right hipbone _like_ a dick.

Yunho want to mess him right the fuck up. “Changmin--”

“Your mating bite is sentimental,” Changmin says. “It’s sweet--”

“It is _not_ sweet--” Yunho tries to point out.

“Mine is a fucking _nightmare_ ,” Changmin continues, ignoring him. “I haven’t been able to tell my _parents_ , Hyung. I think my mom is going to kill me.”

Yunho has to concede that. “Fine,” he says, and yawns.

Changmin frowns at him. “Have you not been sleeping?” he says.

Yunho wants to hate him, wants to yell at him that he is the one who should be asking that because he’s not the one filming in between being famous, but he also just kind of wants to go to sleep.

Changmin pinches him on the hip. “You should be sleeping.”

“Ow,” Yunho says, frowning. “Changdol.”

Changmin lets go of Yunho and drags his palm across to rest over top Yunho’s abdomen.

Yunho blinks, thinks about where his hand is, and presses the pads of his fingers into the meat of Changmin’s ass.

“This isn’t sleeping,” Yunho says. He tilts back against the couch a little.

Changmin sees it for the acquiescence it is and drops his hand down to round the base of Yunho’s dick.

Yunho swallows. He knows Changmin’s mostly doing it to be a shit, but already he can feel his belly tightening, muscles jumping with anxiety and arousal all rolled into one. He swallows again.

“Some people call it sleeping,” Changmin says, like an asshole, and Yunho comes up off the couch so that he can kiss him. “Sleeping together, I mean,” Changmin keeps trying to say, even as Yunho takes advantage of the part of his lips to slip his tongue in. Changmin makes a startled, pleased sounding noise and licks his way along the roof of Yunho’s mouth as well.

“Fuck.” Yunho pulls back on the swear, cock throbbing where Changmin’s still holding it around the base. He sinks both hands into Changmin’s asscheeks and presses, ever so slightly, watching with bated breath as Changmin moans, and groans, and goes beautifully, beautifully slack across Yunho’s lap.

“This is not sleeping,” Yunho says again, because he should. He’s practically itching to press a finger into Changmin, but that would be too much too soon. And they never have lube in the house, and Yunho knows himself better than to try to get it from the source.

As if reading his mind, Changmin’s eyes go sharp, and he rocks back so that he’s practically straddling Yunho now, hissing as Yunho’s grip on his ass keeps his hole exposed.

Yunho wonders if he’s as aching as Yunho is, on his back, wet as sin, and practically frothing for it.

“When,” he tries, and breaks off when his voice comes out ragged. “When was the last time?”

“Sadako,” Changmin says, eyes caught on the rise and fall of Yunho’s chest like he wants to bite into it. He reaches out with one hand to drag flaming fingertips along the line of Yunho’s juglar, barely there ghostings that leave Yunho’s skin tingling and his blood roaring in his ears.

Yunho doesn’t think he has the brain capacity for trying to figure out what the fuck Changmin is on about.

“After Sadako,” Changmin says, clearly aware of that.

Yunho finally produces the movie, the movie premiere, and the fuck in question. He frowns and lets go of Changmin’s ass with his right hand. He can’t ever stop touching the left side, because the left side is _his_ and so sensitive because of it; Changmin’s hips are twitching in time with the rub of Yunho’s thumb along what he thinks might be his own left canines.

“Yunho-hyung,” says Changmin.

“That doesn’t count,” Yunho says. He thinks he ought to be shirtless too, but then, he’s not nearly as tanned or toned as his other half is.

Changmin’s head tilts to one side. The front of his shorts look painful, and Yunho nearly takes his tongue off trying to keep the whimpers inside.

“Sadako doesn’t count,” Yunho explains finally, letting go of Changmin’s mating mark with an almost disappointed sigh. He settles for sliding both hands up Changmin’s ribs instead, so that he can drag and tug and maneuver until Changmin is looming over him with his eyes blown near black.

Their arousal is heavy and heady in the air, and Yunho sucks in mouthful after mouthful like some sort of addict, lost in the cycle of sensation and lust and slick, hot and gathering at the seat of his boxers like he can’t fucking help it. (He can’t. It’s reactionary. Yunho’s so ready for it it practically _hurts_.)

“Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says again. His arms are shaking.

Yunho gets his right hand up around Changmin’s cheekbones and jawline and strokes. “Sadako was you fucking me,” he says. His words come out surprisingly clear.

Against the front of Yunho’s sweatpants, Changmin’s knot _pulses_. “Oh,” he says. He’s breathless.

Yunho maybe regrets what he’s said.

Almost reading his mind, Changmin slips a hand underneath Yunho to grab him by the right hip. “It’s fine if you don’t mean it,” he says.

Yunho knows him well enough to know better. “Changdol-ah.”

Changmin grins but dips his head in acknowledgement. “What kind of lover would I be if I didn’t offer?” he says.

“What kind of lover would I be if I didn’t enable your love of dick, Changminnie?” Yunho interrupts, and then squeaks when Changmin runs a nail directly along the seam of his mating mark.

“You do not get to talk to me about dick loving,” says Changmin, but he’s still grinning and he smells like all he wants to do is throw his head back and laugh.

Yunho grins up at him and finally decides to take matters into his own hands and disrobe from the t-shirt and sweatpants.

“Oh,” Changmin says, as he does so. “You’re not wearing underwear.”

“Well, you weren’t here to borrow from,” says Yunho, and then he’s the one laughing because Changmin has let go of his hip and is instead tickling him, merciless and lighting fast up and down Yunho’s limbs.

Yunho shrieks, and squirms, and twists, and ends up rubbing up all along the front of Changmin’s thread-bare jean shorts, heart pounding in his chest and laughter straining his lungs. “What--Changminnie--stop--are those the same shorts--did you wash them--”

Changmin stops tickling him and makes a face. “What kind of monster do you think I am, Yunho-yah?” he snaps, rhetorical and incredibly serious. “It has been an entire _month_ \--”

“Like… eleven days,” Yunho corrects, breathing hard from all the laughing. “And I mean, you’ve been busy.”

Changmin draws himself to his full height despite being shirtless and on top of Yunho on a couch. “You can never be too busy to do laundry, Yunho-hyung,” he says.

Yunho stares up at him and is so utterly in love.

There’s a beat.

Changmin’s cheeks warm. “Well,” he says. “You can.”

And there’s nothing stopping Yunho from reaching up to take Changmin by both cheeks and pinch.

“Yah--Hyung--don’t--what--” says Changmin, and tries to disengage from their tangle of limbs.

Yunho ignores the sting of denim and locks both ankles behind Changmin’s lower back, face hurting from all the smiling. “Love you,” he sing-songs.

Changmin blushes some more but stops fighting him. “Love you too,” he mutters. It’s like he can’t not say it back.

Yunho wants to kiss him.

Yunho pulls up from the couch once more to do so, and then drops both hands down to start to handle Changmin’s jeans. “So I guess you’ll have to wash them again,” he says up against Changmin’s lips, and nips him when the younger man starts to protest. “If you even washed them in the first place--”

Changmin pulls away from Yunho’s mouth, slaps Yunho’s hands away from his the fly of his shorts, and undoes the button and zip himself. “I fucking wash my clothes, you asshole!” he shouts, doing an unfairly coordinated and attractive shimmy out of the clothes in question.

Yunho watches him toss the things across the room and doesn’t breathe, content to lie naked underneath him and maybe jerk off a little. His cock kind of hurts. It’s justified. His couch is probably going to have to be professionally cleaned again and Jungmin-hyung might just murder them, but that’s fine.

That’s for future Yunho to deal with.

Present day Yunho is trying to figure out how to come through on his promise to fuck Changmin while also getting fucked by Changmin.

Changmin settles himself back onto his haunches and growls, expression unamused, and taps on Yunho’s hip a few times. “You’re not listening to me,” he says.

Yunho nearly loses grip on his own erection at the growl of Changmin’s voice, and so his voice cracks when he responds. “Nope.”

Changmin snarls again and knocks Yunho’s hand off his own cock with a scowl.

Yunho hisses and whines and doesn’t even care that Changmin is still teasing him, muttering on about the things he does for him--good things, lovely things, callused _hand_ things--or something.

“Changdol-ah,” Yunho says, after a few merciless moments of Changmin just thumbing over the slit of his cock like he’s milking it or something. “I have an idea.”

Changmin lets up on the stroking and hums, not looking away from where Yunho’s cock is practically weeping against his thumb.

“You should fuck me,” Yunho starts, whining only a little when Changmin lets go of his cock to finally stare at him.

“Yunho-yah--”

“And then.” Yunho swallows, a little nervous, but so wet he’s almost embarrassed over it. “Then you should pull out and I can fuck you,” he finishes in one great, desperate gulp.

Changmin’s mouth falls open every so slightly and his throat bobs. “Oh,” he says.

Yunho is taking that as a yes. “I try,” he says.

Changmin takes him by the thigh and pulls so that they’re better arranged the long way on the couch, and then settles his full weight across Yunho’s hipbones. His cock is red and hot and heavy around the base already. Yunho makes an incredibly high pitched noise and hitches a leg up around Changmin’s ass again. “Fuck me now,” he says.

Changmin twists his hips a few times and grinds Yunho into the couch for three terrible, blessed seconds, and then stops. “It doesn’t seem fair that I won’t get to come and you will,” he says.

Yunho blinks up bleary eyes and practically sobs at him. “I’m not getting a knot, though,” he mumbles. Words are hard. Not slurring is hard. Sounding like he’s fresh off the train from Jeolla-do is _easy_.

Changmin drops his head down into the center of Yunho’s chest and groans.

Yunho stares down at him and reaches out to pet through his already damp, dark curls. “You really do like my accent,” he says.

Changmin snorts into the center of Yunho’s chest, but pushes back against the grip Yunho has on his head. “Clearly,” he says, and twists his hips a few more pointed times.

Yunho will give him that. “I promise I won’t come until you come.”

Changmin lifts his head, eyes narrowed. “Do you mean that?”

Yunho regrets offering. “I promise I’ll try--”

The hand Changmin had on his thigh slides down and around to palm Yunho’s ass, fingers dipping through the moistness already gathering there, and the pad of one long index finger probing around his hole. “Nope,” he says, over enunciating even as he slips his finger in to the joint. “You said you won’t--”

Yunho throws his head back against the couch cushions and groans, lip between his teeth. “Changminnie--I don’t know if I can--”

“You can if you love me,” Changmin says, still only one finger into Yunho’s ass. “You can if you want me to let you fuck me.”

Yunho thrashes his head into the couch a few more times, and peels his eyes open so that he can glower, and then ends up shutting them immediately again when Changmin adds a second torturous finger. “Changdollie-yah!” Yunho wails, undone. “I’m self lubing--it’s fine.”

“Yunho-yah.” Changmin’s tone is no nonsense and entirely too composed and Yunho is going to fucking hold off orgasming so that he can put the man on his stomach and fucking _give it to him_ \-- “What am I always telling you?”

Yunho is going to murder Changmin instead; it would be just as satisfying as fucking him.

Changmin gives him a third finger without waiting for an answer, clearly aware that Yunho isn’t even going to try.

“I hate you,” Yunho tells him.

“You’re a bad liar,” says Changmin.

Yunho gives up on fighting and resigns himself to his fate. His hips ramp back a few times on Changmin’s hand, but Changmin refuses to do more than stretch him.

“I don’t know why you’re so convinced that you don’t need anything--”

“Well, gee, Changmin, it’s almost like you’re forgetting about Kyungtae--”

Changmin’s eyes go dark and dangerous and he stops playing around with Yunho’s ass abruptly so that he can position his cock right at Yunho’s hole. “Don’t talk about Kyungtae,” he says.

Yunho stares up at him and almost wants to laugh. “Changdol, you bought him for me--”

Changmin pushes in surprisingly slowly for how low his voice is, because above all else, he is lovely and loving and Yunho’s favorite. “Kyungtae,” he says, over enunciating both characters. “Is a fucking _dildo_ , and is not a fucking _he_ \--”

“Kyungtae doesn’t spend five minutes teasing me--”

“Prepping you,” Changmin says, even though he definitely sounds a little indisposed now that he’s in Yunho almost to the knot.

Yunho barely manages not to whine like he’s dying and to stop him before Changmin’s all the way in.

There’s a pause.

Changmin stares down at the stretch of skin that will be his knot and breathes. His nostrils flare. His lips curl back.

Yunho can feel sweat beading in the swell between his shoulder blades.

“Oh, you weren’t kidding, then,” says Changmin.

Yunho reaches up to touch him on the cheekbone, and then drags his hand around to haul him in close by the neck. “I fucking _promised you_ ,” he says, and kisses him. The next few minutes pass in something of a haze.

Yunho has to keep one eye open to make sure Changmin doesn’t just shove all the way in, but that very quickly turns into Yunho has to keep an eye open so that he can look Changmin in the beautiful, beautiful eyes to keep from slamming both heels into his ass until Changmin shoves all the way in, and not coming--not coming is becoming harder and harder and harder like the swell of Yunho’s dick.

“Right, what if I just wasn’t a man of my word--”

“Then I’d have to not marry you,” groans Changmin, but he sounds about as happy as Yunho does about the situation. “This is like the worst kind of porn,” he says. “Why did I agree to this? Whose idea was this?”

“Because you love me,” Yunho says, and gasps, moaning. “Oh--now--Changdol--now--It was my idea and I want to marry you--”

Changmin stops fucking with the self-control of someone who’d starve himself for chocolate abs, but he whines and groans and snarls about it directly into Yunho’s temple the entire time. “I am in love with you and I also want to marry you and of course it was your _fucking_ idea--”

“Technically.” Yunho breaks off to hiss and swear when Changmin pulls all the way out of him with a hiss. “Technically it was your idea because you were the one who brought up how long it had been--”

Changmin leans in and kisses Yunho’s mouth shut and furrows his brow a little. “You had your hands on my ass--”

Yunho puts a hand on Changmin’s ass because he’s never one to waste an opportunity, and then pauses when he starts to see a flaw in his plan. “Huh,” he says. “You’re not self-lubing.” He licks his lips. “And I’m always touching your ass--”

“Not in public,” Changmin says, flushing a little.

Yunho blinks at him. “Changminnie, this is my house--”

“Shut up, you’re missing the point,” snaps Changmin.

Yunho rubs a thumb along Changmin’s tailbone. He frowns some more. “I guess I’ll have to prep you,” he says.

Changmin mulls that over, tilts his head to the side every so slightly, and then fucks back into Yunho in one fell swoop.

“Fuck, shit, Changdol--what--” Yunho swears.

Changmin is careful to keep his knot--which is starting to swell ever so slightly, the fucker--out of Yunho’s body. He’s also grinning like his birthday’s come a full four months early. “What?”

Yunho wants to kick him, but he’s pretty sure if he did so Changmin might just knot him and make him a liar. He grits his teeth, arches his back, and reaches down back with one arm. “This is poor planning,” he says.

“Improvise,” Changmin says, but he sounds about as broken up about it as Yunho feels, gliding a thumb down to where they’re joined and thumbing along the skin there. He doesn’t really mean to do it, but Changmin makes the most beautiful pained noises when Yunho presses against the skin of his slowly forming knot a few times, and Yunho maybe gets distracted.

Finally, Changmin shoves his own hand down to help, scowling. “Stop that,” he says. “That’s unfair.”

Yunho remembers why he wanted to do it this way anyway--thinks of how much fun it is to hold Changmin on the edge of a full orgasm--and can’t help but smirk.

Changmin is looking at him with almost concerned eyes. “Look, maybe we should just call it off--” He starts to move like he’s going to fuck in and let his knot catch on Yunho’s rim so Yunho hurries and swipes two fingers through the mess of his rim and reaches around to hook a thumb into Changmin before he can finish that sentence.

Changmin curses, goes near bug eyed, and stops moving.

Yunho keeps his thumb in him, ruminates over the amount of slick he’s got on his fingers, and frowns. “We’re not going to be able to do this--”

“Yunho-yah.” Changmin sounds like he’s going to his death. “I think you are going to have to do more than just put the tip in--”

“I actually have fucked you before, Changdol, please,” Yunho says, but pulls his hand away anyway because good point. “Don’t let me get distracted.”

Changmin’s mouth rounds and his cheeks blaze. “What?” His voice is high and strained. “No--I meant in _me_ \--what--”

Yunho’s sunk a finger into himself alongside Changmin’s cock on a shaky exhale before Changmin can finish protesting.

“ _Fuck_ \--” Changmin’s voice is raw.

“Fuck,” Yunho agrees, and stays perfectly, perfectly still.

“I’m buying us lube,” Changmin is muttering to himself. “I’m sucking it up and buying us lube--they make it flavored. I’ll even get you fucking strawberry stuff--”

“If you wanted me to put my tongue in you, Changminnie, you only had to ask--”

Changmin laughs like a dying man and cuts off abruptly when Yunho gives his finger a considering twitch. “I hate you,” he says miserably. “Oh my God.”

“I thought you were a Buddhist?” Yunho says and shifts his finger to tug, and then hisses and winces and feels his cock practically weep with how badly he wants to come.

“Yunho-yah!” Changmin sounds so panicked that Yunho opens his eyes to look at him. He’s staring down at Yunho’s face like a revelation, two spots of color painted high on both cheeks, and hair falling in damp disarray around his features. “You’ll hurt yourself--”

“You’ll need at least two fingers--” Yunho points out. His shoulder is twinging from the angle to reach under himself.

Changmin’s fingers close around Yunho’s wrist to still him. “Don’t hurt yourself,” he says again.

Yunho sighs but lets Changmin pull his hand free. “You still need two fingers, and properly--”

Changmin sets Yunho’s hand on his own ass and sighs, before pulling out with another painful sounding hiss. It feels worse this time, almost like they’d messed up and somewhere in the arguing part of Changmin’s knot had started to catch on the sensitive skin of Yunho’s rim.

Yunho grimaces and groans and sinks his finger into Changmin to distract himself. “Three fingers would be better,” he says.

Changmin’s barely pulled all the way out before he’s sinking two fingers into Yunho’s still gaping, fluttering hole, carefully and precisely quirked to rub against his prostate so that Yunho goes silent and gasping and has to bite through his own tongue to keep from coming on the spot.

“Changdol-ah,” he manages.

Changmin stares down at him and looks so aroused that he doesn’t even have time to snark about it, before he’s working his fingers in and out a few times just to be safe. He’s stopped supporting himself on both arms, and has ended up practically draped across Yunho’s chest now.

Yunho makes garbled noises against his ear and tries to actually prep Changmin instead of just keeping one finger inside him like some sort of puppet without strings.

“Yunho-hyung.” Changmin’s gone back to being polite now, pulled back up off of Yunho so that he can circle his glistening fingers around his own rim. “While in theory this was a good idea, let’s never do this again--”

Yunho pulls his hand free so that he can palm Changmin by the ass again and haul him closer until he’s near straddling Yunho and has a better angle, and tries not to sound too much like he’s dying every time Changmin’s throbbing, half knotting dick keeps rubbing against his abdomen. “Don’t be stupid,” he slurs out. “This is fucking amazing--”

“Right--” Changmin’s gasping and breathy and definitely ready to take Yunho’s dick now. “But it’s taking so fucking long--”

“Why thank you, Changmin, my dick is rather long,” Yunho says, and comes nearly the moment Changmin’s finished sitting down on him.

There is an incredibly awkward, pregnant pause.

Yunho kind of wants the ground to swallow him whole. (Yunho’s hole feels cheated of getting to swallow _Changmin_ whole.)

Changmin is staring down at him with a vaguely cross-eyed expression of pure shock on his face. “Wow,” he says finally. “Way to be a man of your word--”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Yunho snaps, a little embarrassed, but very pointedly manhandling Changmin around on the couch so that he’s face down and groaning, inner thighs already a mess where Yunho is slipping free.

“I’m just saying you owe me one,” says Changmin.

Yunho wraps a hand around his dick and buries his face in the back of Changmin’s neck and snarls, face on fire, even as Changmin gives up on teasing him and instead starts cursing him, hips rutting into Yunho’s hand and mouth open wide against the arm of the couch as Yunho strokes him through all aspects of alpha orgasm.

“It would be rude to make Manager-hyung dry clean the couch,” Yunho says sadly, face still buried in Changmin’s neck, but peeking around ever so slightly so that he can watch the mess of the couch that Changmin’s making as he keeps the base of his hand pressed up against Changmin’s knot.

“I take back everything I said earlier that was the best sex of my fucking life,” groans out Changmin, and flops bonelessly directly into the very wet spot.

Yunho drapes himself over him and kissing him on the nape a few times. “True,” he says. “You should go away for filming more often and leave me alone with my right hand.”

And Changmin lifts his head up from the couch, squirms his way onto his back with only mild displeasure, before stroking both hands through Yunho’s hair and grinning up at him with the world’s sappiest grin.

Yunho looks down at him and loves him more than anything in the world, but still can’t find the words to tell him about the letter burning a hole in his bedside table, and the upcoming meetings they’ll be having in Japan with Matsuura-saichou about the hiatus.

“Hyung?”

“We should shower,” Yunho says, and smiles at Changmin like he means it.

Changmin looks up at him almost like he’s going to ask, then sighs. “Definitely,” he says, pulling a face at what he’s lying in. “We should also burn the couch.”

“It was ugly anyway,” Yunho says.

Changmin snorts and gets to his feet.

Yunho follows.

\--

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND ONCE MORE. WE GO. I really can’t wait to continue this journey with you all! Big things in this one, and then after, ~~babies~~ \-- /is tackled.
> 
> Will update for comments and kudos and retweets. 
> 
> [Tumblr masterpost](http://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/174060278670/right-now-you-and-i-are-clumsy-but-youre) || [Twitter masterpost](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/997951468564041730)


	2. trickle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Kinah and Hexmen. All other mistakes are my own.
> 
>  **Note:** Hovering over vocabulary (on a browser) will bring up a box with definitions. This information can also be found in the [Primer](http://zimriya.tumblr.com/aboau).

**2\. Trickle**

\--

Changmin comes out of their meeting with Avex so livid that Yunho can taste it. On the outside, his bandmate looks composed and calm and only moderately miffed, but anyone with a working Jacobson’s organ can tell that underneath all that perfectly constructed poise, Changmin is furious.

If he pretends, Yunho can almost go along with Sungchang-hyung when their Japanese team leader claps Changmin on the shoulder--danger, danger, what is Sungchang-hyung’s designation again? Beta? _Alpha_? Oh my God Changdollie we need the man to continue having hands, shouts Yunho’s brain--and says, “I’m sorry they’re only letting you finish basketball.”

Changmin doesn’t take their manager’s hand off, but Yunho would wager it’s not because he’s suddenly developed telepathic powers and is reading Yunho’s mind.

Yunho would also like the ground to swallow him whole.

“What sort?” he starts to ask, trailing off when Changmin turns his totally indifferent and not angry gaze on him now. Yunho clears his throat. “What sort of sport are they doing after?”

“I can’t believe you,” Changmin says. His voice sounds like he’s been shouting even though he’d said all of three words the entire meeting.

Yunho has to fight the instinctual urge to bare his throat, which, in all honesty, he hadn’t thought was a thing that happened outside of television dramas or romance novels. He narrows his eyes. “Are you being a dick?” he says, and then wants to bite his own tongue off. That wasn’t what he’d wanted to say. What he wanted to say was something about how Changmin needed to stop _using_ his dick, because it had to be Changmin’s dick that was making Yunho go all gooey and inclined to bare his throat like some sort of damsel in distress. Or like, the bite on Yunho’s hip itself--really, he ought to be baring his hip in response to Changmin’s ire, only, Yunho hasn’t said _any_ of that.

Instead, Yunho’s put his foot in his mouth, and Changmin goes from smelling livid to smelling dangerous.

Yunho’s stubborn, annoying, self-sabatoging-let’s-not-tell-Changminnie-about-our-enlistment-notice part of himself makes him step right into Changmin’s personal space. “Look, you were really busy with your show,” he says, which isn’t, ‘attractive women put leis on you and you got to go swimming and get tan and I was stuck at home fighting with our company over when I would be going on my mandatory hiatus,’ but is ultimately far more likely to get Changmin even more upset, so naturally, this is what Yunho’s going with.

Self-sabotaging.

Stubborn.

Let’s not tell Changminnie and also make him _mad_ so that he doesn’t start nosing around the real questions, like the fear smoldering in the pit of Yunho’s chest.

Sungchang-hyung shifts awkwardly next to the two of them and clears his throat. “Can we not do this now?” he says. “We really have to go--”

Yunho ignores him. “I didn’t think it was a big deal,” he lies.

Changmin’s cheeks go bright pink.

Yunho regrets his entire life’s choices but can’t make himself utter two fucking words. “Changdol--” he tries

“Not important,” Changmin says. He’s finally walking them further away from the conference room they’d been trapped in for the last hour, but instead of looking pleased about that, Sungchang-hyung just looks a bit miserable.

Yunho would feel bad for him, but Yunho is too busy digging his own grave. “Changdol--”

“That’s fine,” Changmin considers overtop him. He won’t meet Yunho’s eyes.

Sungchang-hyung follows after them, clearly resigned. “Can we go slower?” he mutters.

“Changmin--” Yunho doesn’t know how to finish. “I’m--” He can’t end the sentence. He doesn’t know why it’s so fucking hard.

Changmin turns away from him, back rigid. “I have practice when we get home,” he says. “But I guess that’s not important either.”

“Changmin--” Yunho cries, but Changmin is no longer so much as breathing at him.

\--

Africa is spontaneous, but also something Yunho had always wanted to do. He could have gone without the press; the cameras make the whole thing feel wooden and almost self-congratulating, but Yunho tries not to think about it too much and instead focuses on what he can take away from it all. But mostly, he misses Changmin, because they weren’t really speaking or seeing each other before Yunho had gotten on a plane and jumped continents.

Yunho hates it, but he’s spent every single shower feeling simultaneously like an overprivileged colonist and staring at the mark on his hip like it’s going to fucking disappear the moment he stops looking. It’s stupid, because he’s never going to stop loving Changmin, so it’s never going to disappear. It’s Changmin’s mark he should be worrying after, and the thought of it vanishing thanks to Yunho’s own stubborn pride and stupidity keeps him up almost more than the emotional strain of the trip itself.

So, the night before his flight back, feeling miserable and utterly stretched thin, Yunho caves and braves the extensive phone bill to text Changmin.

_Would you press charges if I had Heechul-hyung pants you to make sure you still love me?_

Yunho watches the message send, and immediately regrets it. He can’t even remember the time zone difference, but since it’s near midnight here, it can’t be too late in Seoul. He knows Donghae is in Japan at a fanmeeting, so Kyuhyun will be as well, but Changmin’s got Minho or Junmyeon or whomever else he’s palling around with while being mad at Yunho. He’s probably still hanging out with Jongsoo-hyung, despite the fact that they’ve started basketball already.

Yunho’s message glints off his phone like it’s mocking him. There’s no read receipt or typing symbol or anything to indicate that Changmin’s even received the thing. All there is is Yunho’s near hyperventilation and regret.

 _Changmin?_ he types. Before he can send it, his phone shouts at him with a new message in Kakaotalk.

Yunho startles, clicks his phone to silent, and opens the other app.

 _Yunho-hyung_ , it says. _Why are you texting me from Africa?_

Yunho blinks. He hadn’t expected this much, honestly, and he can’t help himself. _Is that a yes?_ He really does want to know, now that it’s out there. Now that he’s asked.

There’s a pause.

 _I am not sending a dick pic_ , replies Changmin finally.

Yunho mulls that over. _But an ass pic?_ He sends.

 _Look, you obviously realize it was actually a big deal_ , Changmin continues, clearly not having read Yunho’s idiotic message. _Because you wouldn’t be rambling about harassment worried that I don’t love you anymore if it was ‘not important.’_

Yunho feels like he deserves that. _Changmin_ , he tries.

Clearly, Changmin’s finally stopped long enough to read his message, because he continues after a mild stop in three individual messages sent one after another: _Yah. Stop worrying. I’m not going to send you a picture of my ass._ Then there’s another beat--Yunho feels a headache starting in the back of his head--and more. _Just because you’re a paranoid idiot who keeps massively important secrets from me--_ and then his words devolve into keyboard smashing before Yunho gets three Apeach emoji in quick succession.

He blinks, sleep deprivation making a terrible joke. _Is that…_ he starts with. _Changdollie, I know your ass is a peach…_

 _I’m going to fucking kill Choi Minho please fucking hold_ , replies Changmin.

Yunho gets the feeling if Hangul had capitalization, that’d be entirely capitalized. He’d find that funny, but mostly, Yunho looks down at his phone and blinks back sudden and surprising tears.

He ignores common sense and goes back to his text screen, and hits dial.

Changmin doesn’t keep him waiting for more than the opening beats of their comeback song, but also doesn’t let Yunho do more than say his name before he’s telling him off.

“Hyung,” he starts with.

Yunho can hear the sound of his night out with the parts of Kyuline still in Seoul in the background. “Changmin--”

“You are on another continent. Stop calling me and charging us both fees--”

“But I miss you,” Yunho interrupts miserably. Hearing Changmin’s voice hasn’t helped at all. In fact, it’s made things worse. Yunho’s chest is a mess of raw emotions and mostly loneliness, and he bites at his bottom lip for what feels like hours while Changmin breathes at him from the other corner of the world. He tries to remind himself he hasn’t properly cried for nearly eight years, and that he will have to extra not cry for the next two years come July when he enlists.

Changmin is still silent on the other end of the phone for a long moment. Then he speaks. “That’s unfair,” he says. “I’m mad at you.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the letter,” Yunho blurts immediately, because he is and has been since Changmin slammed the car door in his face when they dropped him off at his apartment upon landing in Seoul.

Changmin quiets again, and Yunho realizes he can no longer hear the sounds of Kyuline in the background.  Changmin must have stepped out or locked them out of his bedroom.

“Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says.

“I should have told you,” Yunho continues, heart roaring in his ears. “I should have called you I just--” He breaks off, nervous and lonely and furious with himself. “Changdol, I miss you.”

Changmin clears his throat. “That’s unfair,” he says again. His voice is watery. “I’m mad at you.”

“As you well should be,” Yunho says, and his voice is watery too. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t miss you--”

Changmin laughs, tinged teary as well. “It’s been a week,” he says.

Yunho shrugs. “Doesn’t matter,” he says. “Also, I see you all the time.”

Changmin’s voice has gone a little dry. “Don’t they write poems about that?” he asks.

Yunho shrugs again and settles more comfortably into his bed. He fluffs a pillow up to lean against and lets a hand fall down to rest on his right hip, thumb rubbing restlessly along the impression of Changmin’s incisors. “But--” He cuts himself off, embarrassed suddenly.

There’s a pause.

Then, softly, “I’m not sending you a dick pic, Yunho-hyung.”

Yunho blushes despite himself, even though he’d seen it before. Read it twice over and gotten distracted by the peach emoticons. “But an ass pic,” he says.

“Yunho-hyung.” Changmin’s not sad sounding anymore. “I love you.”

Yunho’s heart skips a beat. “I love you too.” He tugs aimlessly at imagined threads on his blanket and worries his bottom lip.

“That doesn’t change just because I’m mad at you,” Changmin finishes. He sounds embarrassed.

Yunho misses him like a limb.

Changmin swears. “Don’t,” he says, and Yunho can practically see him holding a hand in front of his eyes and out between them. “Don’t say it again--”

“But Changdol,” Yunho whines. “How can I not say it when we’re so telepathically linked--”

“Don’t say that either--”

“I _miss_ you,” Yunho croons. His cheeks feel warm. “I miss you and I’m sorry and I just want to _kiss_ you--”

“You should,” says Changmin quickly, and then stops like he’s realized what he’s agreeing to. “I mean--”

Yunho wants to reach through the phone and take him by both probably blushing cheeks.

“Fuck you,” Changmin finishes, sounding resigned.

“I wish,” Yunho breathes.

There’s another pause, but this time the air between them is as charged as the connection letting them speak. Yunho thinks of the countries between them and aches. “Fuck.” He’s the one swearing now. “Can we pretend I didn’t say that?”

“Yes,” Changmin whispers. “Lets.”

Yunho doesn’t say anything for one more moment. Then-- “Let’s fuck the moment I get home or not talk about it…?” he asks and pulls away from the phone giggling at Changmin’s squawk.

Changmin laughs as well, resonating all the way across two continents and into Yunho’s chest like a warm embrace, and Yunho lies back against his pillows and stares at nothing and misses him.

“I miss you too,” says Changmin finally. “I miss you more--I’m going to miss you for two _years_ \--”

Yunho finds he isn’t quite ready to talk about it. “Changdol-ah,” he says.

Changmin sighs, but lets it go. For a while, they’re just quietly alone together, lost in thought and wishes and peacefulness. Then Changmin sighs again and speaks. “You could have just said that before.”

Yunho breathes hard out through his nose, air hissing past his suddenly clenched teeth. His chest feels heavy. “Changdol-ah.” His voice breaks.

Changmin sounds like he wants to reach through the phone as much as Yunho does. “You should have just said that,” he says again. “Yunho-yah.”

Yunho’s back to blink away tears. “Later,” he says. “I still have some filming--”

“I’ll pick you up,” Changmin says.

Yunho sniffs. “So we can fuck faster?”

If Changmin hears the hitch to his words, he doesn’t comment.

“Sure.”

Yunho loves him. “Kay,” he says. “Love you.”

Changmin makes a punched-out noise. “Gosh,” he hisses. “You’re costing me a fortune.”

Yunho looks down at the phone, at the time stamp on their call, and laughs another wet laugh. “Yeah, well,” he says. “I’m worth it.”

“Yeah,” says Changmin. “So much so.”

Yunho breathes. “I should hang up now,” he says. “I don’t want to cost you another fortune--”

“Mmm,” Changmin sounds amused. “If that makes you feel better--”

“I’m going to cry on you,” Yunho decides. “When you pick me up at the airport I am just going to _bawl_ on you--”

“What’s that? You want to put your balls on me?”

Yunho’s mouth parts in vague horror. “What--?”

“You’re breaking up, Hyung, I can’t hear you--what--you what--”

Yunho pulls the phone away from his ear and grins. “Full. On. Sobbing--”

“Okay, bye then, Yunho-hyung,” interrupts Changmin.

Yunho’s not even mad that he hung up the phone.

Three minutes later, Hosik-hyung pokes his head into Yunho’s room with his phone clutched to his chest looking furious. “Yunho-yah,” he snaps. “Why the heck is Jooyoung sending me phone bills?”

Yunho blinks and turns on his idol charm. “I don’t know, Hyung,” he says, at the same time he’s already angrily messaging Changmin in kkt. _Touché, Changdollie._

 _Yunho-hyung_ , replies Changmin, at the same time Hosik-hyung throws both hands in the air still clutching the phone. _What have I told you about speaking in tongues?_

Yunho pauses, reviews then sentence, and tries not to laugh like a pervert. He sends Changmin the tongue emoji a terrible amount of times.

“What if I just quit?” Hosik-hyung says in the background. “What if I just left?”

 _Yunho-hyung_! replies Changmin. Yunho can practically read the flames that must be coming off his face.

 _If you want me to put my tongue in your ass, all you have to do is ask_ , he continues, and takes pure joy in the immediate keyboard smash that Changmin ends up sending him in response.

\--

Changmin isn’t home when Yunho gets there. Jooyoung-hyung and Jungmin-hyung had picked him up at the airport in Changmin’s usual company car--Yunho needs to stop memorizing license plates--looking amused. Jooyoung-hyung took Yunho’s luggage; Jungmin-hyung very gently and tactfully asked if the two of them had ‘kissed and made up.’

Yunho got into the passenger side and hid his blush behind sunglasses for the entire trip.

“I’m glad,” Jungmin-hyung said, in answer to his own question. “You’re good for him.”

And that was all Yunho had been able to think about for the entire trip back to Changmin’s apartment. The words ‘good for him’ and ‘Changmin’ running around his brain in circles until Jungmin-hyung was smiling less out of love and more out of awkward necessity, and Yunho was shifting and twitching with every single speed bump.

Yunho wants to be the _best_ for Changmin.

So of course, the moment they arrive back to his apartment, Changmin’s out. Probably with Kyuline.

Yunho sighs.

“You should call Hosik-hyung,” says Jungmin-hyung, standing behind Yunho in the doorway. They left Jooyoung-hyung with the car, and Jungmin-hyung is struggling a little under Yunho’s suitcase.

Yunho startles, but snaps out of it quickly enough to rush to help him. He’s lucky customs is a nightmare, and that his managers and the producers had insisted on taking nothing back with them. All Yunho has are bracelets and memories.

He and Jungmin-hyung finish wrestling the suitcase into the apartment, and the older man is slightly out of breath. He leans on the suitcase, breathing deeply. “SBS wanted you for their new drama,” he says, clearly returning to the previous point of conversation.

Yunho blinks.

“But you’re going to be too busy with the comeback,” Jungmin-hyung finishes. “So you’ll have to say no--Hosik-hyung will know more.”

Yunho keeps blinking. “SBS?” He hasn’t tried nor thought about acting since the travesty that was _Queen of Ambition_.

“You’d have been the second male lead,” says Jungmin-hyung. He stumbles.

Yunho reaches out to steady him automatically, amused. The older man is Changmin’s, usually, and Changmin likes to carry work out equipment alongside anything you’d ever dream of needing in his bags. Jungmin-hyung ought to be more ripped than Hyukjae.

“Yeah,” Jungmin-hyung says, smiling quickly at Yunho’s help. “The main lead is Kim Soohyun-ssi.”

Yunho knows him vaguely. He watched him on _Running Man_ once.

“The female lead is Jun Jihy- _un-ssi_ \--” The man’s voice goes up at the end, which may have something to do with the fact that Yunho is now white knuckling his shoulder, but Yunho can’t be bothered to focus long enough to parse that out.

“Jun Jihyun-noona?” he says. Peripherally, he’s aware of the fact that his voice might be termed breathy. He doesn’t care. He’s too busy having an out of body experience and watching the whole turn of events from several centimeters above in the air.

“Yes--ow, Yunho--” Jungmin-hyung doesn’t seem impressed by Yunho’s grip on his shoulder, but seems to realize that getting out from under him is impossible. “But again.” Jungmin-hyung finally manages to free himself and rubs at the skin of his neck a few times. “You’re going to be too busy with comeback--”

Yunho lets his hand drop to his side and kicks out of his shoes so that he can wander further into Changmin’s apartment, making the step up into the hallway and making the left towards the living space. “Jun Jihyun-noona,” he says again, and fumbles for his phone.

He can hear Changmin’s manager following after him and making sure their shoes find their way into Changmin’s shoe closet next to all the guitars.

He’s not all that invested in that. He’s more focused on the more pressing thing. The Jun Jihyun-noona thing.

Yunho pulls out his phone.

“Yunho--” Jungmin-hyung’s voice fades out as Yunho clicks into Kakaotalk.

 _Changminnie-yah_ , he types. _Jun Jihyun-noona_.

The message sends.

Yunho sinks himself into one of the seats at Changmin’s breakfast bar/living room island.

 _Yunho-hyung_ , Changmin replies. _What?_ He doesn’t say anything else, but Yunho really doesn’t care.

“Hyung,” he says.

Jungmin-hyung seems to perk up. “Yes?”

“What’s the show about?”

“You’re not going to be in it,” Jungmin-hyung protests.

Yunho ignores him.

 _Hyung might be in a drama with Jun Jihyun-noona_ , he tells Changmin. _Jun Jihyun-noona is an alpha_ , he adds, in case Changmin wasn’t aware. The entire fandom was aware--back when they were a five, and also during the first few years of them being a duo, the fact that U Know Yunho, leader of TVXQ and alphaest alpha to ever alpha had a crush on Jun Jihyun, South Korea’s sweetheart and very much _also_ an alpha was subject to gossip among netizens and their fanbase alike. There’s no way Changmin doesn’t know. Yunho tells him anyway.

“What’s it about?” he says again and looks up at Jungmin-hyung.

The man sighs. “Uh, well, I didn’t read the script--”

“I need to call Hosik-hyung,” Yunho determines.

“--But, uh. There’s aliens?”

Yunho grins. “Thanks, Hyung,” he says. Changmin will love that. Changmin loves aliens.

 _I might also be an alien_ , he tells Changmin, pleased.

There’s a small pause, then his phone rings.

Yunho picks it up without pause. “Hello?”

“Yunho-hyung.” Changmin’s clearly in one of Kyuline’s apartments surrounded by his friends and alcohol, but he doesn’t sound nearly all that drunk enough for the time. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Yunho listens to the sound of Changmin’s clearly drunker friends laughing their asses off at the combination of the honorific and the cursing.

“Changmin-ah,” he scolds, heart not really in it. “I could be in a drama with Jun Jihyun-noona.”

There’s another small pause.

Then, as if Changmin’s leaned forward, “wait, really?”

Yunho blinks. “Why do you sound surprised?” he pouts. He turns to Jungmin-hyung, who just lifts both hands like ‘don’t look at me’ and also a little bit ‘can I please leave now?’ Yunho ignores both requests. “Changminnie,” he says.

“Look.” Changmin is clearly ignoring the question. “I’m glad for you. But why did you say might?”

Yunho frowns. “Ah, well,” he says.

Jungmin-hyung finally stops looking quite so panicked.

“I’m not allowed to because of comeback,” Yunho says. “But Changminnie. If you’d talk to Youngmin-seonsaengnim--he likes you--you could convince him that I totally can do Jun Jihyun-noona and a comeback.” He pauses. Rewinds that sentence back a few times. “I mean a drama,” he adds quickly. “I mean I can do a drama.”

Changmin seems unimpressed. “Yunho-hyung,” he says.

“Look, can you ask him or not?” snaps Yunho.

“First of all.” Changmin isn’t fazed by the snapping. “Youngmin-seonsaengnim definitely does not like me best.”

“Does too--everyone likes you best,” mutters Yunho, because it’s true; all of their staff and managers adore Changmin, as does all the staff and producers attached to Cool Kiz, and Yunho is tired of beating makeup noonas off with a stick like ‘excuse me that’s my teeth on his ass get your own.’

“He does not,” says Changmin, still unfazed. “The last time we spoke he was still mad about the fact that I confessed to a wax fetish on national television.”

Jungmin-hyung, overhearing, makes a pained whimpering sort of noise from where he’d been diligently going through Changmin’s mail over in the kitchen.

Yunho glances towards him, smiles beatifically at him, and goes back to his phone call. “Oh yeah,” he says. “We still haven’t done that.”

There’s the distinct sound of Changmin falling mostly likely face first into the coffee table his friends are all gathered around and spilling at least one bottle of beer--Kyuhyun is particularly shouty about it while Minho just starts laughing and one of the other Kyuline kids just starts asking timidly if Changmin-hyung is okay.

Yunho smirks to himself. “But you were saying?”

“Uh… right.” Changmin sounds like he’s red in the face. Yunho misses him even more. He remembers that they haven’t seen each other in ages and that the last time they’d seen each other they’d been fighting, so the last time they’d _seen each other_ \--really, really _seen_ each other, complete with kisses and cuddles and Changmin slapping Yunho on the shoulder three times a conversation for being the sappiest man alive what the fuck--was August. A full month ago.

Yunho’s lips pull to one side. “I miss you,” he says, at the same time Changmin manages to finally steer the conversation back around.

“Second of all. Are you okay?”

There’s a long beat.

Yunho mulls that over. “But Changmin. Jun Jihyun-noona.”

“What are you--I miss you too--what--do I need to be jealous?” Changmin clearly would not have been good at juggling.

Yunho loves him anyway. “No,” he says. It’s only a little lie. Changmin need not ever be jealous seriously, since Yunho is his forever and always, but Changmin could be jealous a little, because it’s fun and Yunho likes it and also Jun Jihyun-noona is his ideal woman, down to the fact that if she wanted to she could give Yunho babies as well. “You don’t have to be jealous.”

“I definitely have to be jealous,” decides Changmin. “You are making your baby voice.”

Yunho pauses. “My what?”

“Oh my God--Yunho?” Jungmin-hyung appears to have finished with the mail. “Are you okay? Do you need anything? Can I go--”

“I don’t have a baby voice,” protests Yunho, nodding at Changmin’s manager. “Changminnie--Jungmin-hyung is leaving--”

“Why are you even telling me this--is he drunk!” Changmin says that last bit with a raised voice, and Yunho pulls the phone away from his ear with a wince. He switches it to speaker without pausing. “You’re not on speaker, asshole,” he says.

Changmin doesn’t even sound bothered. “Sorry. But Hyung.”

Jungmin-hyung pauses.

“Yunho-hyung,” Changmin clarifies, realizing immediately. “My Hyung. Lover Hyung.”

Yunho feels heat flames up and down both cheeks. “Changdol.”

Changmin is uncaring. “Are you okay?”

“I’m just going to go--”

“No, I remembered,” says Changmin. “Did he have wine on the plane?”

“I actually didn’t do more than pick him up? Changmin-ah?” Jungmin-hyung really ought to be given a raise, Yunho thinks.

“Oh yeah.” Changmin actually sounds disheartened.

“You’re the one who sounds drunk,” says Yunho. “Bye.”

Jungmin-hyung waves, bows, and is on his way.

Yunho listens to him gather his shoes and pull the door shut behind him and sighs. “Changmin-ah,” he says, interrupting whatever it was Changmin had been on about--something about trying to figure out which manager Yunho had taken to Africa and simultaneously shouting at Kyuline to shut up so he could concentrate and also maybe the fact that he was going to text said manager regarding Yunho’s plane happenings and alcohol.

“Yes?” Changmin’s missed him too, Yunho determines. He’s never this attentive.

It makes something pleased curl inside him, something warm and friendly and making him ache like he hasn’t in years. Not since they were getting family questions daily, even if they were aimed at making Yunho into the alpha to Jaejoong’s omega and Changmin was just their child or sometimes the family dog.

Changmin will be the best parent.

Yunho wants a family with him _now_.

He holds his tongue, folds his feet more comfortably underneath himself, and sighs. “I missed you.”

Changmin’s breath hisses through his teeth and is audible across the phone. “I guess I’m not _really_ jealous of Jihyun-noona, then,” he says. It’s only a little bit of a subject change, but Yunho grins anyway.

“Thanks for reminding me,” he says. “Don’t you think I’d make a good alien?”

“You really shouldn’t do a drama at the same time as comeback,” he says. “We’re going to be so freaking _busy_ \--”

“But it’s Jun Jihyun-noona,” says Yunho. “I could make something work for Jun Jihyun-noona.”

“What about using her firstname first?” Changmin asks dryly, voice wry. “You don’t wanna seem like a crazy fan.”

“Rude,” Yunho says. “I’ve only ever been nice to Jun Jihyun-noona.”

“Yeah, that’s still her full name,” says Changmin. “And you’ve never even spoken to her.”

“I know, which is why I can’t believe I might get to make out with her,” Yunho says, and he’s only a little playing it up for the way Changmin’s voice goes sharper and deeper and raw when he growls out, “Yunho-hyung,” into the phone.  

“You are not going to make out with Jun Jihyun.”

“Noona,” Yunho corrects. “Jun Jihyun-noona.”

Changmin growls some more.

Yunho ignores him. “And I might. I’m the second lead. Sometimes the second lead gets to make out with the female lead--”

“You are _not_ going to be the second lead you were in talks for being the second lead but our _comeback_ \--”

“Changmin-ah!” It’s Kyuhyun. He’s audible over the background noise and clearly either wrestled the phone from Changmin or is leaning over top him and speaking directly into both his ear and the phone.

Given that Changmin immediately curses, Yunho thinks it’s the latter.

“While we all very much appreciate the fact that you’re no longer South Korea’s number one bachelor, could you maybe get a room or call it a night?”

Yunho snorts.

Changmin snarls.

“Hi, Yunho-hyung,” says Kyuhyun, still up against the phone--and by proxy, Changmin.

“You’re the worst,” mutters Changmin.

“It’s fine,” says Yunho. “Hi, Kyu.”

Kyuhyun probably smiles.

Changmin probably shoves him off.

“It’s fine if you need to go, Changmin,” Yunho tells Changmin. His joints are starting to ache from having been seated on Changmin’s fancy metal chairs, so he gets up with mild groaning and makes his way over to the sofa, plopping down onto it with a mild sigh. “I don’t want to keep you up--”

“Hyung.” Changmin’s voice sounds weird. “What are you doing?”

Yunho settles himself, and then starts looking around for the remote. It’s over on the ledge by the television itself, because Changmin is that kind of asshole. What he ends up with first is the remote control for the fucking blinds, and Yunho looks at it, remembers the last time he’d seen it--frantically trying to grab it out of Changmin’s hands while not braining himself in his quest to stay upright while Changmin fucked him up and into the fucking _windows_ \--and wants to throw it far, far away.

“Yunho-hyung.” Changmin’s fucking whining.

Yunho can’t believe he lets this man-child fuck him on a regular basis. “Changmin-ah,” he whines back.

It backfires. It sounds remarkably close to how Yunho sounds while said fucking is occurring and brings him full circle back to the blinds and the not remote.

Yunho gets up, phone still held to his ear, and grabs the remote. “You don’t like the movie anyway,” he says. He turns on Changmin’s television, and frowns, because Changmin doesn’t own _My Sassy Girl_ and Yunho doesn’t carry _My Sassy Girl_ around in his carryon for times like these anymore… er… ever. He never did that. That would be weird.

“Yunho _-hyung_ ,” says Changmin. “If you’re about to beat off on my sofa to _My Sassy Girl_ I swear to fuck--”

“Wow, gross, Chwang!” shouts Kyuhyun, Minho, and whomever else is in the apartment with Changmin.

Yunho flushes despite himself and pulls the phone away from himself. “Changdollie-yah,” he whines in the vague direction of the microphone. “I’m not going to jerk off to _My Sassy Girl_.”

Changmin isn’t paying any credence to his friends, but the noise is getting lesser, so he’s up and moving.

Yunho can’t help but want him to move all the way back home, so that they can have this conversation face to face.

“Fine.” Changmin does not believe him.

“Changmin-ah!” Yunho says. He shifts awkwardly around on the couch. He’s never jerked off to _My Sassy Girl_. He’s maybe jerked off in the shower once to the thought of Jihyun-noona, but even thinking about that feels dirty at the moment. “Changminnie-yah,” Yunho finishes, a little miserably. He misses Changmin, he doesn’t want to deal with the stress of buying the movie on Changmin’s television, but all he wants to do is watch the damn thing and forget about the world for a little bit.

“Yunho-yah.” Changmin’s definitely alone now. “What are you talking about?”

Yunho sighs and lets himself list properly onto Changmin’s bony sofa. “I miss you,” he says. He sounds like a broken record.

“I miss you too,” Changmin says. “Although, you’re the one who left.”

“To do charity, asshole,” says Yunho. He’s grinning up at Changmin’s ceiling like an absolute idiot, he’s losing feeling in the leg he had underneath himself, but he doesn’t care, because he and Changmin are talking and laughing and missing each other like normal.

“That sounds… don’t combine those two words ever again.”

Changmin’s a right idiot.

“Changmin,” Yunho snorts. “What the heck?”

“I’m just saying. You leave out all punctuation when you miss me.”

Yunho blinks and mulls that over. “What?”

His other half has gone shy. “Never mind.”

Yunho frowns. “What?”

“Accent--look--”

Yunho stares up at the ceiling of Changmin’s apartment and after a moment, drops a hand down to fumble at the fly to his jeans. “I’m taking my pants off,” Yunho tells Changmin, effectively derailing the conversation.  Yunho takes advantage of Changmin’s silence to actually remove his jeans, shifting awkwardly around on the couch to get his leg out from himself and then putting the phone down on his chest so that he can deal with the zip and buttons.

When he’s finishes--and wearing only boxers--Changmin’s gone silent on the other end of the phone.

Yunho yawns.

“Can I buy _My Sassy Girl_ on your account?” he says.

“Yah,” Changmin says. Evidently he hasn’t hung up.

Yunho yawns again. “Is that a no?”

“You cannot buy _My Sassy Girl_ on my account so that you can _jerk off to it_!” shrieks Changmin.

Yunho puts the phone back down on his chest again, and grabs for the remote. He queues up the movie in question, then picks up the phone again.

“Yunho-hyung!”

“Changmin-ah,” Yunho interrupts overtop Changmin’s shrieking. “Hyung is tired. I’ll see you when you get back?”

“Yah. Yah. Yah! You cannot buy _My Sassy Girl_ on my account so that you can _jerk off_ \--”

Yunho hangs up the call with only mild glee and settles in to watch the film.

The next thing he becomes aware of is the fact that he’s airborne, the apartment is considerably darker, and _My Sassy Girl_ has finished and Changmin’s television has reverted back to a standard cable channel and seems to be airing some sort of variety program where the entire staff is in drag.

Yunho doesn’t have the wherewithal to do more than squint at him, not entirely sure what’s happening and why he’s in the air--

“Yunho-hyung. Stop squirming. I will drop you--”

Ah, it’s Changmin, Yunho realizes, with a tiny little swoop in the center of his chest right where his heart should be. Changmin’s got one hand around his shoulders and the other under his legs and he’s full-on bridal carrying him out of the living room towards the bedroom.

“You’re such an idiot,” Changmin is saying, not even pausing to turn off the television, and Yunho struggles in earnest now.

“Hyung.” Changmin grunts, feet planted, and doesn’t drop him. “Stop--”

“Turn it off now,” Yunho says petulantly, twisting a little towards the still shouting TV and then settling so that he’s more safely ensconced up by Changmin’s neck. “Turn it off now. Don’t want you to leave me.”

Changmin’s cheeks go bright red and he bites his lower lip, but he heads dutifully over towards the television so Yunho can click it off from where he’s more optimally positioned at perfect height.

“Thanks,” Yunho mumbles into Changmin’s sweatshirt.

His other half breathes very deeply, then starts walking back towards the bedroom in the dark.

Yunho thinks it must be nice not to have things strewn about your living space just waiting to trip you on a late-night bathroom break. Yunho wishes he could just move back in with Changmin.

“Absolutely not,” Changmin says, making the right past his desk into the bedroom. “You are not moving back in--why are you even here anyway--”

“Jungmin-hyung got distracted,” Yunho says. “And I napped in the van and it was too much work to head to my place.”

“You don’t live that far away,” Changmin says. He sets Yunho down on the bed after a pause and stands in front of the bed with his sweatshirt down around his hands. He looks soft and fluffy and half-drunk and like everything Yunho wants for the rest of his life. “And also I--what if I’d gone to your place.”

Yunho thinks that over. “Would you have?”

“No.” Changmin pulls his sweatshirt up over his head and muffles his words. “You’re the sappy one.”

Yunho has a sudden urge to rush home and figure out if Changmin's been in his bed on smell alone. Which reminds him of his nose _period_ , so he takes deep, purposeful gulps of air, dragging Changmin’s scent past the roof of his mouth like he’ll never get to breathe Changmin in ever again.

Changmin tastes sleep deprived and happy and probably a little bit drunk.

Yunho settles back against the bed and sighs, pleased.

“Shirt.” Changmin’s standing before him in boxers and not much else. “Off.”

Yunho looks back up at him. “Can I have more than one word?” he says, then giggles and twitches and goes scrambling across the bed when Changmin sets about tickling him free of his shirt.

By the time they’re settled into the bed, Yunho somehow as always ending up on the bottom as the bigger spoon, Yunho’s back to feeling sleepy.

Changmin seems to pick up on that, and presses tiny kisses to the bit of Yunho that he can reach.

“We need to talk,” Yunho says.

“We can talk tomorrow,” Changmin says. He yawns.

Yunho yawns in sympathy. “But I--I’m sorry, Changminnie. I should have told you the moment I got the letter.”

Changmin sighs and shifts so that he’s pinning Yunho to the bed. Their noses are touching. They’re not the only thing. “We can talk tomorrow,” he over enunciates.

Yunho stares up at the mess of his features, smeared across with darkness, and breathes. “Okay,” he says. “But--”

Changmin kisses him, sweet, slick, and rapidly going hot. Then he pulls back, puffs out two breaths against Yunho’s cheek, and rolls so that his back is to Yunho. “No.”

Yunho stays on his back breathing, before rolling so that he can drape all over Changmin’s back. “Changdol--”

“Tomorrow,” Changmin says, stiff as a board, and snarling when Yunho drops a hand to feel out if all of him is stiff. “Yunho.”

Yunho sighs but retreats his hand off of Changmin’s dick anyway. “Fine.”

Changmin shifts suddenly so that they’re face to face again and pecks him on the nose. “Love you.”

Yunho feels heat flood his face. “Jun Jihyun-noona wouldn’t leave me wanting,” he says with very minor dignity.

For a second he thinks Changmin won’t rise to the bait, but then the other man scowls. “Jun Jihyun-noona is never going to know you _exist_ ,” he says vehemently, and then snorts when Yunho giggles at him. “Shut up. You like it.”

“So much,” Yunho agrees, but then schools his features. “But I really am sorry--”

“I forgive you,” Changmin says. He kisses him again. “I don’t get it. And if you do it again I’m going to hit you--but I forgive you.”

Yunho holds his gaze and blushes some more.

“Now can we please, please, please sleep? I have basketball practice later and we have promotions--”

Yunho rolls them both around until he’s almost entirely on top of Changmin and Changmin is spitting hair out of his mouth.

“This isn’t comfortable--”

“You’re going to steal all of the blankets. This is planning ahead.”

“I’ll plan you ahead,” says Changmin nonsensically, but closes his eyes, lets out a deep breath, and settles in to sleep anyway.

He steals all of the blankets. Yunho gets his revenge by stealing Changmin’s _boxers_ and then stealing underneath the blankets to say hello to all of him.

\--

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your comments, kudos, and retweets! They really made my day! Please check out the masterposts below; Kinah's gifs are lovely. :)
> 
> [Tumblr masterpost](http://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/174299693900/right-now-you-and-i-are-clumsy-but-youre) || [Twitter masterpost](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1000700539766759424)


	3. seep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Hexmen. All other mistakes are my own.

**3\. Seep**

\--

Changmin hurts himself playing basketball, and Yunho is the last to know. To be fair, Changmin is the _second-last_ to know, since he doesn’t pick up on the extent of his injuries until the adrenaline and alpha competitiveness has worn off in the locker rooms after the match, and Jooyoung-hyung and Jungmin-hyung are rushing him to see a company doctor to make sure he hasn’t broken himself before the start of the final SM Town concerts and also their comeback.

Yunho doesn’t even find out from them, however, since Yunho doesn’t go to Changmin’s games or stay up all night by the phone anymore, in part because he doesn’t want to take attention away from Changmin, and in part because the stress of the experience isn’t fun for anyone. For Yunho, because he’d like to live past thirty without having a heart attack, and for his managers, because they’d like to _have a hand_ come the next morning.

Yunho finds out from Changmin himself, standing over him in the dark of Yunho’s apartment grumbling, but not bridal carrying him to the bed.

“Well, I’m glad to see you took my words to heart,” Changmin says, once he realizes that Yunho is in fact staring blearily up at him from his place on the couch. He’s holding himself a little funny.

Yunho would focus more on that, but it’s pitch black in his apartment and mostly he’s just trying to get his ears to start working properly.

There’s a telltale ring in the left one from sleeping with most of it shoved uncomfortably into the pillow. Yunho took a shower before he climbed onto the couch and passed out, and the towel he put down to spare the leather has left its mark all over his left cheek as well.

Yunho blinks.

“I’m glad,” says Changmin, still not making any sense. “The last time I got hurt on the show, Hodong-hyung couldn’t look me in the face without laughing for the rest of the recording,” he explains, with very little concern for the fact that Yunho has no idea what he’s even saying. “Which was even worse because of Jooyoung-hyung’s little stint with the wife thing--”

That gets Yunho’s attention; he remembers _that_ , because Hodong-hyung had made him dance like a trained pet and then patted him on the back and told him how proud he was that Yunho had grown past stereotypes or whatever, and Yunho had had to pin Changmin to his own mattress and refuse to let him knot for twenty minutes before he’d gotten the truth out of him.

Yunho scowls a little.

Changmin snorts. “Yeah, of course that’d be what you understand,” he says. He’s still standing awkwardly in front of Yunho and making absolutely no move to do anything else.

“What?” Yunho manages finally. “Changdol? Up--” He manages to catch himself before the entirety of that sentence can form, but his cheeks still go hot and he still wants to shove his entire face back into the couch to get away from the fact that he has absolutely no filter half-asleep. “Fuck,” Yunho mutters. He puts his head back down so that he doesn’t have to look Changmin in the eye. When the silence is too much, he turns his face just enough to see Changmin.

Changmin is smiling down at him, eyes so soft and smirking that Yunho’s half-asleep brain is definitely trying (and failing) to miss it, but he doesn’t pick Yunho up. “Sorry, Hyung,” he says. “I’m on strict orders. No excessive lifting or straining.”

Yunho blinks a few more times and rolls so that he’s more properly on his side staring up at Changmin. “What?”

“I hurt my ankle today,” Changmin says. “Ran into Julien-hyung. He fouled.”

That wakes Yunho slightly more. “You _what_?”

“It wasn’t that bad, but I kept playing on it after,” Changmin continues pleasantly, like that’s something to be proud of. Yunho gets the feeling this is payback for the fact that he continued their concert in Shanghai.

“Changdol-ah--”

“In my defense, I really didn’t think it was that bad until after,” Changmin finishes. “Jooyoung-hyung took me to the doctor--it’s just a sprain, but I’m not allowed to play next week.” He frowns. “Jinyoung-sunbaenim is away for his honeymoon anyway, so it’s not like it’s going to be a real match or anything.’

Yunho must not be all the way awake, even though his heart rate hasn’t quite finished calming from Changmin’s confession. All he can think about now that Changmin’s started talking about honeymoons is the fact that they’re both going to their manager’s wedding in three days, and how they’ve had bites on each other for six whole _months_ without a wedding or even engagement ring in sight.

Changmin’s mouth has gone soft and shy and a little knowing. “Yunho-hyung.”

Yunho sits up and tries not to wince at the new aches in his joints. Next apartment, he’s getting a better couch. If his neighbors keep having to make a fuss about the fans, Yunho’s going to just have to move back into their old dorm, or something, and he’s going to get himself a fancy, so-comfortable-it-could-be-a-bed couch as a reward for having to go back in time. Something like what Super Junior has, since Yunho’s drunk-slept on it more than a few times and woke up surprisingly refreshed (and in Changmin’s grumbling arms while Heechul-hyung cackled in the background). Hell, he’d settle for what he had originally, before he and Changmin did no-good-terrible things to it and bought this one, which is cheap and uncomfortable and totally purchased by Changmin _on fucking purpose_ to try to curb Yunho’s couch sleeping habit.

The jokes on him, though, since Yunho’s still here, sleeping on said terrible, uncomfortable couch, only this time with more aches and pains and less inclination to let Changmin fuck him silly.

Yunho has digressed.

He has no idea if the conversation has continued.

Changmin is still standing in front of him smiling.

“Changdol--”

“I’m glad you weren’t making a fuss about it, actually,” says Changmin, as if Yunho hasn’t gone off on a couch tangent for like three minutes. “But couldn’t you be in bed, instead?”

Yunho frowns, stands, winces some more, and makes to bridal carry Changmin.

“Yeah, no,” his other half says, stepping back. “I’d rather not break you too--”

“You’re a stick,” Yunho points out dubiously.

“A stick of pure muscle,” Changmin retorts immediately. “And you’re half-asleep and favoring your left side.”

“This couch you bought me is _awful_ , Changdol,” Yunho says.

Changmin blinks innocently back at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.

“Fuck you,” Yunho snaps, a little pink in the cheeks.

Changmin grins. “Well, if you insist--but I’m also more than a little sore from all the sports _period_ \--”

“Changmin-ah,” Yunho interrupts, concerned. “Take care of yourself--”

“I didn’t run into Julien-hyung on purpose,” says Changmin. He’s smiling down at Yunho again, dark hair falling in loose, unstyled waves over his eyebrows. He’s growing it out for comeback, but their team hasn’t quite finalized the color pallet yet, so he’s been natural for months now. It makes Yunho’s chest ache a little bit and fools his brain a little into thinking they’re just two normal, mated people, waiting to get married because marriage is joining your families and a whole lot of a fuss. Not idols, not allowed to be kept from mating someone, but not allowed to shout it from the rooftops with a diamond engagement ring either.

And what the _fuck_ honestly. Yunho went to sleep to the drone of the home shopping network--not watching a romantic melodrama. What the fuck is _wrong_ with him? It’s _October_.

He frowns.

Changmin yawns.

“Bed,” Yunho decides. He steps forward.

Changmin steps back. “No, Hyung,” he says. “Youngmin-seonsaengnim would have _both_ of our asses.”

“I literally have never dropped you,” says Yunho, and then brightens. “Oh--”

“No, I did not speak to the man directly,” says Changmin. “And no, I did not mention Jihyung-noona--are you okay?”

“This couch is terrible for me,” Yunho says, with great dignity, and turns around to walk off towards his bedroom without even looking at Changmin.

He can hear his other half fussing with the blankets and pillows before following him, but Yunho just settles into the center of the mattress and stares up at his ceiling trying to figure out why he’s suddenly even more awake than he’d been lying on the couch. He knows why, is the thing. He never sleeps well in a bed without Changmin’s heartbeat but thinking about that is sentimental and somehow even _worse_ than wandering the lines of their lack of marriage.

Yunho rolls over and shoves his entire face into Changmin’s pillow--it smells like him; fuck Yunho’s life--and groans.

“Are you that angry at the bed?” says Changmin from the doorway, nearly scaring the shit out of Yunho, who manages to stay pressed into the pillows through force of will.

“Shut up,” he says into the cotton.

He can hear Changmin divesting himself of his clothing, cataloguing which bits the other man is losing--shirt, pants, socks--and what he’s keeping--boxers--before he can help himself. Yunho’s in boxers and a t-shirt that is definitely leftover from when Changmin did badminton, and he feels distinctly overdressed.

Changmin slides into the bed and settles down with a long sigh.

“I have a guest room,” Yunho says a little bit meanly. It’s easier than ‘why the fuck aren’t you spooning me?’

“I’m an invalid,” says Changmin, hearing him anyway and reaching across to drape an arm over Yunho’s back. “I might die in my sleep if you’re not here to look after me.”

Yunho lifts his head out of the pillows and glares at him. “It’s your ankle,” he says.

Changmin takes advantage of Yunho vacating his pillow to slide right onto it, which leaves him at an odd angle, and Yunho very suddenly staring down at the bridge of his nose going cross-eyed. When he lies back down, they’re basically chest to chest.

Changmin’s heart beats right up against Yunho’s, and Yunho swallows and feels sleep seep into his bones.

“Fuck,” he says, a little miserably, and then buries his face into the center of Changmin’s sternum.

“Ow,” Changmin says, dropping a hand to play with Yunho’s hair anyway. “Nose. Hyung. Nose.”

Yunho turns his face so that he’s not completely digging into Changmin’s breast bone and sighs. “You know why I sleep on the couch,” he mutters.

Changmin’s fingers tighten in Yunho’s hair. “Yeah,” he says.

“You should have bought me a nicer one.”

Changmin’s fingers falter, but his voice only shakes slightly when he answers. “Yeah, well. The next one will just have to be perfect.”

Yunho lifts his head and shifts so that his chin is digging into Changmin’s right pectoral instead of the dip of his chest. “The next one?”

Changmin’s throat bobs. “You know we can’t live together,” he says.

Yunho drags his leg over top Changmin’s good leg so that they’re all the way spooning. “But the next one?”

Like clockwork, there’s noise from outside Yunho’s apartment, and Yunho knows it’s late enough that it’s probably just Seoul in general, but his muscles still lock up a little and guilt sits heavy in his belly.

“The one after,” Changmin decides finally. “I’ll buy you a good one, after.” He’s looking at Yunho in the dark like he can more than see in infrared.

Yunho stares back at him and loves him more than the world. “Changmin-ah,” he says.

Changmin’s for sure blushing. “Shut up.”

Yunho scoots up the bed so that he can kiss him on the tip of his nose.

Changmin wrinkles it but allows the kisses. “Shut up,” he says again.

“Mmm,” Yunho says, and gets him on the mouth this time. “You can have an entire wine cellar.”

Changmin’s breath stutters in his lungs. “Oh?”

“And we need two offices, clearly, since we’d never get any work done if we had to share--”

Changmin snorts.

“And you like your space--I know--”

“You know Yunho.” Changmin’s voice is fond. Yunho wants to climb inside it for the entire winter.

“But one bedroom.” Yunho drops his forehead back down onto Changmin’s chest and sighs.

“With no guest bedroom?” Changmin sounds amused.

Yunho kicks him, but gently. He is an invalid. “No guest bedroom for you--” he corrects.

“Weren’t you the one offering me it earlier?”

Yunho wants to lick him between his unfairly defined pecs. “That’s only because you were being a loser,” he says.

There’s a pause.

Changmin settles a hand in between Yunho’s shoulder blades so that he can better shift them around on the bed. Yunho’s head ends up closer to the pillow, Changmin’s other hand ends up resting on Yunho’s right ass cheek, and Yunho right hip sympathy throbs a little.

As if reading his mind, Changmin snorts, and his hand slides to thumb over the rim of Yunho’s boxers. “A loser. I’ll have you know we won.”

Yunho’s breath is a little shaky from the attention to his hip. “Oh?” His voice is unrecognizable and embarrassing.

“Mmm.” Changmin is smug. “Forty-three Thirty-five.”

Yunho grins at him. “Yeah, well. You were acting like a stranger. When your teeth…” He presses his right hip into Changmin’s fingers and tries not to groan at the automatic arousal pooling in the air around them. “… Are on my _hip_.”

Changmin slips his hand into Yunho’s boxers without pause, skirting around the skin of Yunho’s mating mark.

“You _loser_ \--”

“If you’re trying to distract me from our real estate plans, you’re failing,” Changmin says, but his voice is parched sounding, so Yunho knows he’s lying.

“Yeah, well,” he says, trying to negotiate getting his own hand down Changmin’s boxers to even the playing field without putting pressure on his injured leg. “We have like five years for that.”

Changmin pauses. “Five years?”

Yunho reads the mood and sighs, giving up on palming Changmin’s ass. “Or something,” he says.

Changmin’s frowning. “What about… just three--”

Yunho snorts. “Yeah, like they’ll let you do that,” he says.

“Hyung--”

“Like I’d let you do that,” Yunho continues, rolling so that he’s not sprawling across Changmin anymore, and is instead just monopolizing his right arm. “You can’t--that’s two years of _nothing_ \--”

“It’s not like you’ll go off the grid,” Changmin says, but his voice is tight. “Yunho-hyung.”

“You’re not going early,” Yunho says. He feels like crossing his arms, or like he’s throwing a tantrum, and the earlier peaceful haze of sleep is slowly retreating and it’s too early into the night for him to say fuck it and stay up. “Changmin-ah.”

“Fine,” Changmin says crossly. He pulls his arm free of Yunho and rolls away so that they’re not spooning anymore. “And people wonder why our fans think you’re the alpha--”

“Why, because alphas always make the decisions?” Yunho snaps before he can stop himself. He’s not sure if he’s mad at Changmin or at himself for getting them here, because there’s no way he’s going back to sleep now.

Changmin sighs, growls, and then rolls abruptly so that he’s practically pinning Yunho to the mattress. It’s not pleasant in the slightest, and Yunho doesn’t go boneless and waiting at _fucking_ all. Certainly he’s not disappointed when all Changmin does is breath into his neck a few times before sighing some more. “That’s getting really fucking old, Yunho-hyung,” he mutters.

Yunho feels an angry flush start at the base of his neck. “Shut up.”

“I love you,” Changmin continues. “When have I ever given any indication that I want to own you simply because of the way my cock works--”

“Shut up,” Yunho says again, embarrassment heady on the roof of his mouth and probably spilling out into Changmin’s lungs as well. “Shut up--”

“We can talk about the enlistment stuff tomorrow,” Changmin continues. “But it’s _my decision_ \--”

“Changdol-ah,” Yunho whispers miserably.

Changmin pauses to kiss him briefly on the neck in what feels like an automatic response. “Even though you get a say in it--”

And now Yunho’s guilty all over again about Saipan.

Changmin nips him. “Stop that. I already forgave you.”

Yunho doesn’t even have time to think more about that because Changmin it seems has gotten distracted and is mouthing along the skin of Yunho’s neck now. He pulls back before Yunho can go all the way lose and aching to continue speaking.

“So, we’re going to talk about it together like adults who are in the same band together--”

“I don’t want to lose you,” Yunho blurts out finally, and wonders if he can blame it on the love bites Changmin’s in the middle of making all along his throat. “Changdol. We have schedules--”

“Just a wedding,” Changmin says. “Wear a high collar. Put a spoon on it--”

Yunho growls, the memory of the press’s field day about Qian and Changmin making him irrational and jealous and ready to buck Changmin right off him.

“Oops,” Changmin says against Yunho’s jugular. “Poor wording.”

“You fucker,” Yunho snarls, and fists a hand in his hair to haul him up to kiss him.

Changmin lets him, going flushed and glassy eyed in a matter of seconds. “Thought you were-- _ah_ \--thought we were-- _oh_ \--thought we were-- _ngh_ \--sleeping--”

“This is your fault,” Yunho says, and gestures down at the swell of his cock. He’s barely leaking, but in two seconds he feels like he could be there and ready.

Changmin goes cross eyed. “We really need to sleep,” he says a little desperately.

Yunho shifts to grind up against his cock.

“Oh--” Changmin appears to lose his train of thought, and then winces when his cast pulls.

Yunho stops immediately, horrified. “Changminnie--”

“I like carrying you,” Changmin continues, still desperately.

Yunho’s mouth opens and then closes. “You. What?”

Changmin’s bright red in the face, and clearly, he’d been trying to change the subject, but not immediately regrets it. “Oh God.”

“You’re a Buddhist,” Yunho says automatically. “Changminnie--”

“Can we blame it on my painkillers?” Changmin’s voice is very high.

Yunho walks the sentence back into his living room and tries not to grin. “It’s okay,” he says. “You’re talking to the man whose first words to you were when you woke him up were ‘Changdol?’ and ‘Up.’”

Changmin blinks.

Yunho wishes he wasn’t pinned underneath him and could hide, but smiles at him anyway. “We’re even?”

Changmin’s face very slowly breaks out into a smile. “No,” he says eventually. “No. That’s definitely _more_ embarrassing--”

Yunho squawks, squirming away from Changmin because he knows the younger man is going to tickle him or something. “It is not--yours was worse--yours didn’t even have context--”

“I was standing over you very clearly injured with my leg in this cast, Yunho-yah,” Changmin purrs. “There was absolutely _no context_ \--”

“Usually when you’re standing over me like that you carry me!” Yunho protests, stills squirming. “Shut up! I had plenty of context, you asshole!”

Changmin just grins down at him, and palms Yunho’s cheek. “Sure.”

“I love you so much it’s unfair,” blurts out Yunho, and then shuts his eyes on a squeak in case Changmin really does decide to tickle him. When that doesn’t happen, he opens his eyes again.

Changmin is staring down at him like he cannot even _believe_ , and his thumb is rubbing along Yunho’s cheekbone.

“Fuck, Changdol,” Yunho says.

“Not tonight,” Changmin says. “Sleep--”

But he’s kissing Yunho, which seems counter to his claim.

They fall asleep like that regardless, and in the morning Changmin’s hair is in Yunho’s mouth and Changmin’s cast is digging into Yunho’s shin bone and the sun is in Yunho’s eyes because he’s on the wrong side of the bed and he didn’t do up the blinds because he assumed he’d just be sleeping on his couch, but Yunho doesn’t care, because Changmin wakes up looking like Yunho is the sun itself and goes to keep kissing him even though they both have morning breath.

\--

At Kyungchang-hyung’s wedding, Yunho and Changmin end up in the background for most of the photos. There are plenty of opportunities to slip away from the festivities to decompress, but the fans are at the venue taking photos and videos, so the two of them stand for the photo opportunities and smile. Kyungchang-hyung’s one of their longest lasting managers, so he’s a beta (as most of them had been back then), but his new bride is an alpha. Yunho spends most of the ceremony trying to catch an eye of her mating mark, which he knows by way of gossip is on her inner wrist.

Yunho’s met his share of non-traditional couples, but seeing the mating mark always makes them all the more _real_.

But he’s seen Kyungchang-hyung’s proudly displayed on the nape of his neck, and tried not to really think about what they possibly could have been doing for his wife to put it there.

Yunho squirms and shifts his weight guiltily from side to side where he and Changmin have ended up tucked away from most of the pomp and circumstance, with only a few straggling fans still focused on the two of them from behind lenses.

Changmin’d been in the middle of a very serious looking text-message, but he picks up on Yunho’s discomfort anyway. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” says Yunho.

Changmin doesn’t look away from his phone, but somehow manages to shift closer to Yunho without putting weight on his leg. He can’t afford a cast underneath his dress pants, and SM doesn’t want to make a huge fuss about him being injured this close to SM Town Beijing. Changmin won't be playing for the next episode of Cool Kiz for sure, however, and Yunho is still twitchy whenever they go places without crutches.

“You’re thinking about something,” Changmin says. “You smell… intrigued.”

Yunho would wager given his brain had been on a terrible investigatory romp regarding how Kyungchang-hyung ended up with a mating mark right on the back of his neck, at most he probably smelled mildly aroused and a lot horrified. “I’m just happy for Kyungchang-hyung.”

Changmin finally lowers his phone. “Do I have to be jealous of Kyungchang-hyung?” he says.

Yunho has the sudden urge to hit him. “You’re really running with that possession thing, aren’t you,” he says.

Changmin snorts. “I’m sorry, who spent an entire month worried sick every time I so much as spoke to Jongsoo-hyung again?”

“He was always touching you,” Yunho bites out. “He was always talking about how he was as good as dating you.”

“Except he wasn’t dating me, because I’m mated to you, you idiot,” says Changmin, but his eyes are twinkling in counter to his words.

“You like it too,” Yunho grumbles, more than a little glad for that fact, and for the distraction.

“True.” Clearly Changmin has no shame. “But you’re changing the subject.”

“Look. Just. Kyungchang-hyung’s claim.”

Changmin blinks. “What about it?” He shoves his phone into his suit pocket and then stumbles a little. Yunho reaches out to steady him automatically.

“I was just thinking about how he got it,” he says. He doesn’t want to meet Changmin’s eyes.

Changmin keep staring with unblinking eyes. “You mean when his wife bit him?” he starts to say, before the realization hits him, and he flushes a little. His nostrils flare. His scent stops being neutral and goes slightly come hither. “Oh,” he says.

Yunho tries out a smile, feeling a little reflexively weak in the knees. “Yeah,” he agrees.

For a moment, neither of them say anything to each other.

Then: “Well I guess we have more in common with Kyungchang-hyung than I ever needed to know,” says Changmin.

Yunho wants to smack him, so he does.

“Ow--”

“Why would you even _say_ that--”

“Look, we were all thinking it,” protests Changmin.

Yunho glares at him. “We were not--”

“Okay, but we definitely both _were_ , since the only reason I made the connection was because you smelled like a brothel--”

Yunho throws his nose in the air and goes to stalk away back towards the reception, but stops when Changmin puts a hand on his wrist, and then pulls back like burned.

“Public,” he says guiltily when Yunho looks at him. “Hyung--”

“There you are!” It’s Kyungchang-hyung, glowing alpha wife at his side, and smiling at the both of them like it’s the happiest day of his life.

Yunho glances down automatically at the bite mark lining his wife’s inner left wrist, and swallows. It probably is. He’s very suddenly horrifically jealous.

As if reading his mind, Changmin steps pointedly on Yunho’s foot and smiles, taking Kyungchang-hyung’s outstretched hand. “Congratulations, Hyungnim,” he says.

Kyungchang-hyung rolls his eyes. “Ha ha,” he says.

Yunho manages to tear his eyes away from his wife’s wrist for his own handshake, and smiles. “Really, though,” he says, mirroring Changmin’s bow. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” says Kyungchang-hyung’s wife. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.”

Yunho sticks out a hand and tries not to keep looking helplessly down at the bite on her wrist. “Jung Yunho.”

“Shim Changmin,” Changmin says from his side, voice funny.

Kyungchang-hyung’s wife introduces herself, smiling at the two of them like it’s the happiest day of her life as well--it really fucking _is_ , Yunho thinks, and is jealous all goddamn over again--but Yunho is more than a little distracted by the fact that Changmin’s taken advantage of the fact that they’re hidden from the fans to put his free hand on the small of Yunho’s back.

He’s not doing more than touching Yunho, sliding fingertips over the fabric of Yunho’s suit jacket, but his palm is hot and branding and making it very hard for Yunho to concentrate.

Given the turn of their conversation prior, Yunho doesn’t have to think very hard to realize what Changmin’s doing. “Changdol,” he says, voice breathy.

It’s possible Kyungchang-hyung or his wife have said something, but Yunho has no idea.

The woman smiles. “You didn’t tell me they were mated,” she says to Kyungchang-hyung.

Their manager pauses. “What?”

Yunho doesn’t step away from Changmin like he’s been burned, but his stomach does an uncomfortable flip.

“You do realize I’m recently claimed,” Kyungchang-hyung’s wife continues, shooting Changmin a knowing, conspiratory look. “You can put your claws away.”

Changmin pulls his hand off of Yunho’s back at last, and Yunho whines before he can help himself.

It’s embarrassing, has Kyungchang-hyung staring between the two of them with his mouth downturned, but his eyes twinkling. “Ah,” he says. “That.”

“What do you mean that?” says Yunho, at the same time Changmin says, “I do not have claws.”

Kyungchang-hyung ignores them both, pulling his wife close so that he can kiss her on the cheek. “We’re all pretty much used to it, at this point. Worst kept secret in SM. I forget it’s not common knowledge.”

“It’s actually a well-kept secret,” Changmin points out. “Nobody outside of the company has a clue--’

“I’d think your fanbase has a mild clue, Changmin-ah,” Kyungchang-hyung says dryly, but he’s still grinning and kissing his other half.

Yunho’s chest feels tight just watching them.

“Our fanbase thinks Yunho-hyung is secretly mated to Kim Jaejoong,” Changmin spits pointedly, looking like he’d rather lose a limb than continue that train of thought.

Kyungchang-hyung finally stops looking quite so much like a besotted newlywed. “Right.”

Yunho steps back and onto Changmin’s good foot, but gently. “Don’t mind him,” he says. “He’s just jealous because my mating mark isn’t nearly as nicely located as yours.”

Changmin moves away from him, snorting. “You really want to go there?” he says. “Are we really doing this?”

“Yours is worse,” Yunho retorts, even as the back of his neck--hah--starts flushing. “Yours is worse so don’t you dare--”

“You started it--”

“When did you two get mated?” Kyungchang-hyung’s wife interrupts, and it’s like she’s poured an ice bucket all over the conversation.

Kyungchang-hyung coughs. “Honey--”

His wife looks utterly unimpressed by the endearment.

“Jina--”

“April,” Yunho says shortly finally. “April 3rd.”

Changmin’s jaw clicks shut audibly at his side.

“Oh.” Jina’s mouth is very round. “But that was so long ago.”

“I know,” Yunho mutters, at the same time Changmin pastes an empty celebrity smile across his features.

“We’re famous,” he says. “You might have heard of us.”

Kyungchang-hyung’s wife finally smiles, but hesitantly. “Right,” she says. “Sorry for asking--”

“It’s really not a big deal,” Yunho says, only lying a little, and smiles what he hopes comes across as a true smile. “Honestly. My life is a dream right now.” Even though he’s going to have to let it go for two years. Even though his biological clock feels like it’s on overdrive every other day.

He risks a glance towards Changmin, and finds the other man looking back at him with a downturned mouth. His bandmate nods.

“It was really nice to meet you officially,” Jina says again, and takes her unruly husband by the hand to pull him off to continue their rounds with the other assortment of guests and family.

Yunho watches them go with his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“I do want to marry you,” Changmin says quietly to him in aside. “I promise.”

“That’ll be in five years,” Yunho says, not looking at him. “That’s a long time to promise.”

Changmin turns to look at him and stares until Yunho has to return his gaze. “Yunho-hyung.” His tone brooks no arguments. He taps his own right hip pointedly. “That means forever. Five years is nothing.” Then he makes a face, expression souring.

“They’ll never let you,” Yunho rushes to say, before Changmin can so much as bring it up, and then pastes only half a fake smile on his face. “Look. It’s Hwanhee-hyung--”

“I know what you’re saying,” he hears Changmin mutter, and hates himself a little for how he can’t bring himself to pick up the pace when he knows that every two steps is painful for Changmin at the moment.

\--

Yunho knows Changmin isn’t an extrovert. But two hours into his Celebrity Magazine get together, his other half is sitting alone in a corner on his phone while the party sways and goes on without him. They’d posed for the cameras earlier when everyone was arriving, and Yunho’s wrangled him into a bracelet and tried not to feel too much like he was sliding on an engagement ring (he’d failed; some part of him was already making plans to start frequenting high-end jewelry stores in search for the perfect anniversary gift for Changmin come June two-thousand-fourteen), but after that Changmin had stayed close to their managers and greeted most of 85line with a wide smile and only a vague air of discomfort.

He’s not the youngest there, but he’s certainly the most out of place. He’s also Yunho’s bandmate, and SM has been up their asses ever since those blind gossip articles, so he’s stuck staying until everyone else leaves.

Yunho can’t look at him without wanting to go over and climb into his lap and kiss him until he stops frowning, which is absolutely not behavior acceptable for a publicized, magazine-sponsored party of his peers, so he’s taken to ignoring Changmin instead.

It helps that Changmin is officially here as the event photographer, so he can get away with staying mostly out of the spotlight behind his own DSLR.

By the time the last of his guests are finally wandering out loaded full of food, alcohol, and presents Yunho painstakingly picked out for all of them, Changmin is well on his way to passed out and sprawled across one of the tables in the back of the room.

It ends up being Yunho and two managers and Hojoon-hyung, who’s stuck around to watch Yunho try to clean the entire place by himself, and who jabs a finger in Changmin’s direction like, “what’s with party pooper over there?”

Yunho doesn’t look over at Changmin, because looking over at Changmin brings him right back to wanting to be in Changmin’s lap. “He’s not really a social person,” he says instead. “And he’s really actually an incredible photographer. The photos are going to be amazing.”

He’d overheard Changmin telling The Celebrity that he was planning on making an entire album for Yunho himself and has been looking forward to seeing it ever since. And also praying he doesn’t look like some sort of lovesick pining fool in any of the photos where he’d happened to be looking back at Changmin like some sort of moth drawn to a flame.

“Right…” Hojoon-hyung sounds like Yunho’s missed his point.

“Shut up,” Yunho says preemptively, even though he had, actually, since he’s not entirely sure what Hojoon-hyung’s on about. There’s a spot right in the middle of one of the tables that Yunho thinks might never come out and he feels horribly bad about it.

Hojoon-hyung licks his lips with a loud, smacking noise. “Uh huh,” he says. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you feeling up his wrist when he arrived.”

Yunho ducks his head further, embarrassed. “Shut up.” The spot really will not come out, but Yunho isn’t going to let it go, because he’s not ready to face either Hojoon-hyung or his slumbering bandmate.

“It was very romantic,” Hojoon-hyung continues. “Full on proposal-- _engagement,_ actually, since he wouldn’t let you do the left wrist--”

That makes Yunho stop, set down his napkin, and step in close to whine at Hojoon-hyung. “Hyung--”

“Oh.” Hojoon-hyung’s eyes are shrewd. “Oh. You’re serious.”

“Shut up, please,” Yunho whispers.

“Changmin-ah!” Hojoon-hyung calls.

Changmin’s head comes up quickly, almost like he’d been waiting for someone to call him, and the managers in corner seem to breathe a sigh of relief.

Yunho understands. Yunho’s had to wake a slumbering Changmin once or twice. The experience is only fun if they’re alone and he can stick his tongue down Changmin’s throat before the younger man can start cursing.

“Yes?” Changmin is staring over at the two of them blearily. He was most definitely sleeping.

Yunho feels very suddenly guilty. Changmin’d talked to people for sure. Yunho made a point to seat him with people the younger man had met before and made sure to dutifully bring him around to some of his closer friends for introductions. The cameras hadn’t been running the entire event, and there were a least five people who understood the implications when Yunho slid a hand around Changmin’s hip and made like he was going to cop a feel.

And Changmin had had a task for the party, in part because his theme for their magazine shoot had been photography, and in part because Yunho knew that giving his bandmate something to do with his hands would help him with the volume of socialization.

So Changmin wouldn’t have had tragic time at the party, but clearly the length of the thing had been draining.

Yunho starts to frown.

“You’re very lucky, you know that?” Hojoon-hyung is saying to Changmin. “As future best man, I can attest to that.”

Changmin blinks between the two of them, and then glances down at the bracelet lining his right wrist, and then _blushes_.

Yunho makes a broken sounding noise and goes back to mopping helplessly at the spot on the table.

“Ah.” Hojoon-hyung has definitely caught on. “That’s why you two couldn’t be caught dead in the same frame.”

“Shut up,” Yunho says again. He scrubs angrily at the spot of the table.

Hojoon-hyung abandons his spot next to Yunho and comes around bearing his own damp cloth. For a moment, it’s just the two of them silently working out stains, and Yunho has a sudden feeling of déjà vu.

“I get it,” Hojoon-hyung says finally. “Sorry.”

Yunho looks up at him quickly, startled. “What--”

Hojoon-hyung lets go of his cloth and touches a thumb to the bare skin of Yunho’s wrist. “I get it,” his friend says again.

Yunho feels the wind leave his sails abruptly, but he keeps rubbing at the stain on the table. “Hojoon-hyung.”

“Get him something,” Hojoon-hyung says. “Matching.”

Yunho thinks of his most recent Naver searches for Hermes shops in and around Seoul and swallows.

“Hojoon-hyung.” Changmin’s voice comes from behind the two of them, and Yunho and Hojoon-hyung both jump. One guiltily--for no damn reason; it’s not like Changmin’s a mind reader--and one out of surprise.

“Changmin-ah.”

Yunho turns to look at Changmin and can’t help the pleased curl in the pit of his belly when he realizes the other man is staring down at where Hojoon-hyung is still touching his right wrist with an odd twist to his mouth. His eyes find Changmin’s amethyst bracelet automatically, the memory of himself forcing the thing on him before the cameras could so much as get them into the frame--and then being instructed to wander off so that they could do more official greetings complete with an awkward handshake and Changmin actually bowing.

He’d been nervous.

Changmin had been like a soothing balm to heal all wounds, and the scent of him had left Yunho free of all that twitchy, perfectionist energy and ready to face the next two hours of playing perfect host.

Hojoon-hyung stops touching Yunho’s hand coughs, loudly, while stepping away from the table and the two of them. “Probably wise you wouldn’t be caught dead in a shot together,” he says, when Yunho looks at him.

Yunho snorts. “You said that already.”

Hojoon-hyung just lifts both hands in acknowledgement.

Changmin is still staring down at Yunho’s wrist funny. Then, without even darting an eye around the room to see who’s still around, he slips the bracelet Yunho branded him with the moment he arrived to the party off his wrist, and slaps it around Yunho’s.

There’s a mild, telling silence from where Hojoon-hyung hasn’t fully managed to vacate the premises.

One of their managers starts choking on whatever liquid he had been drinking.

Lee Dongwook-hyung, having stayed to make sure each and everything went well, definitely leans in to accost Hojoon-hyung for details.

Yunho hasn’t time for any of that, because Changmin’s somehow gone and fastened the thing. “There,” he says, not meeting Yunho’s eyes. “My souvenirs are here.” He gives the camera he hasn’t let go of since eight p.m. a shake.

“I thought those were for me, though,” Yunho says.

Changmin’s still got a hand on the clasp of the bracelet. “Not all of them.”

Yunho has a feeling that he looked unfairly besotted and lovesick in _all_ of the photos. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Changmin finally let’s go of the jewelry, and Yunho opens his mouth to ask him, paragon of good cleaning that he is, if he has any suggestions for the truly appalling stain on the table they’re still standing around. “So, five years?” Changmin says before Yunho can do so, and Yunho’s stomach drops.

“Changmin-ah,” he says. Changmin’s bracelet was the brown one, amethysts crystal standing in stark contrast to the tan of his skin, but subtle enough to go with the outfit their stylists had shoved him into just that afternoon so that they matched the photoshoot for the magazine itself. It somehow manages to go even better with Yunho’s true-blue suit jacket. “That’s unfair.”

“What, that we have to wait five years?” Changmin says.

Yunho finally stops looking at his wrist and looks at the man next to him, with tired eyes, wavy, slightly damp hair, and pouting, beautiful lips turning up at the corners. “Unfair,” Yunho says again. “Changminnie--”

“You’re right,” Changmin says. “SM’ll never go for it.”

“You love Cool Kiz,” Yunho whispers.

“They sent three managers with me to last filming to keep me off the court,” Changmin says, and spears a thumb in the direction of two of the men in question with an eye roll. “You really think they’ll let me get away with staying past the end of basketball?”

“Changmin.”

“I mean you’re right.” Changmin shrugs. “They probably won’t let me.”

Yunho thinks of all the other things SM said they couldn’t do--of the supposed lack of power the nastier sides of their fanbase are still half hung up about. He swallows.

“We can talk about it later,” Changmin concedes agreeably, and smiles.

Yunho wants to kiss him and has since he first caught sight of the man all the way across the room not even all the way past bowing and smiling for the staff members working for The Celebrity.

The only people who are here are Hojoon-hyung, three managers, two bodyguards, Lee Dongwook-hyung, and the people from The Celebrity, too busy mulling over the footage and not at all paying Yunho and Changmin any bit of mind, so Yunho goes up on his tip toes and does so regardless.

Hojoon-hyung makes a noise, and Yunho knows without looking that his friends are very gently making a point to stand between the two of them and said staff from The Celebrity.

“You’re wearing insoles,” he tells Changmin’s bottom lip, eyes still closed, and only moving back one tiny breath. “That seems unfair--”

“Side effect of working with Kang Julien,” says Changmin, and wraps a hand around the small of Yunho’s back so that he can take the kiss from ‘I missed you’ to ‘this party needed to be over three hours ago.’

Yunho snorts and concedes the point.

\--

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, kudos, and retweets are the way to my heart/how to get updates!
> 
> [Tumblr masterpost](http://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/174544970230/right-now-you-and-i-are-clumsy-but-youre) || [Twitter masterpost](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1003405277952200704)


	4. spout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Hexmen. All other mistakes are my own.
> 
> Sorry for the delay! I was maybe, totally, ~~definitely~~ waiting for Kinah to be able to read again!

**4\. Spout**

\--

“Okay, so you’re right,” Yunho says finally, when the elephant in the room gets to be too much.

Beneath him, Changmin just looks up at him with one raised eyebrow.

“If we wanted to--if we both told them--probably they’d have to let us--”

Changmin gets with the program soon enough, even though his breath is starting to come in pants and his eyes keep rolling back in time with Yunho’s hips. “Oh,” he says.

It’s only a little in response to what Yunho’s said, and definitely mostly because Yunho’s finally decided to sink all the way down on his dick to the knot, toes curling in time to drag of it against his rim.

“I’m in excellent physical condition, Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says.

Yunho thinks back to his leg and the abysmal scare they’d both had performing in Beijing the month before and lifts his eyebrow.

“Irrelevant,” Changmin says, reading Yunho’s mind and setting one sweaty hand on Yunho’s hip to help him keep him on rhythm. “I’m as good as a professional athlete--what’s your excuse?”

Given Yunho had pulled something practicing for SM Town and also learning their new choreography for their upcoming comeback stage, Yunho thinks Changmin is being utterly ridiculous. “And what am I? A trophy husband?”

“I think that’d be Julien-hyung, actually,” says Changmin pragmatically, and fucks up in quick succession with the intent of probably distracting Yunho.

Yunho yelps, and moans, and shuts his eyes into the stab of Changmin’s cockhead right up against his prostate. “Julien,” he says breathlessly, not quite able to open his eyes. His thighs ache, the burn sweet and too soon after only very recently being pronounced healthy enough for their grueling dance practices. “Julien--hyung--”

“Stop saying his name like that,” Changmin growls, and starts twisting his hips on the upstroke so that he’s basically grinding Yunho into oblivion even as his knot throbs and starts to expand in preparation for his orgasm.

“Then you stop--fuck-- _fucking me_ like you don’t know how to use _that_ \--” Yunho breaks off with a wail, legs giving out, when Changmin catches him around the waist with one hand and palms a nipple with the other.

“You were saying?” Changmin sounds so smug Yunho wants to bite him on the bicep.

“Julien-hyung,” he moans out, because never let it be said Yunho wasn’t one to take an opportunity. Then he squeaks, startled, as Changmin not so gently rolls them both around so that Yunho is the one on his back getting fucked within an inch of his life. “Oh--Changminnie--please--”

Changmin gives it to him for five utterly star-inducing strokes, before going back to barely-there shoves of his dick that make Yunho want to smack him. He settles for thumping him on the back a few times, before cracking open both eyes to growl at him.

“Julien-hyung is also an athlete,” Yunho says finally. “He can’t be your trophy husband--also you’re younger than him--”

“But more famous,” Changmin says, leaning to kiss Yunho very gently on the side of his throat a few times, before biting down and sucking when Yunho pouts at him a little and kicks him in the ass. “And also, better at basketball--”

Yunho throws his head back and laughs. “Yeah, okay, Changdol,” he says. “You know he’s carrying your team--”

“I think Jiseok-hyung would take offense to that--”

“Mmm. Didn’t you lose horribly--”

“Shut up--”

“Aren’t they adding another player to help--”

“You know, if you’d actually get off your ass once in a while and help me by telling Youngmin-seonsaengnim I’m actually not going to break myself again--”

Yunho wants to put his fingers in his ears and start shouting, but he settles for scowling a little and shifting on the bed. The fucking tapered off somewhere in the middle of the argument, but Changmin’s cock is still up Yunho’s ass and Yunho’s dick is no less hard for it.

Changmin looks bemused. “What?”

“No work talk in bed,” Yunho decides. He crosses his ankles behind Changmin’s ass and frowns.

Changmin snorts. “We talk about everything in bed, though,” he says dryly.

Just the other day, they’d had a necessary yet somehow pointless argument about who was going to go out and buy toiletries for their Japanese apartment before they had to fly back to Seoul and Busan for schedules. As Changmin had put it, if he had to come back to an empty, dusty, shampooless apartment one more time, he was going to put hair dye in Yunho’s conditioner just to watch him explain what had happened to their stylists two months before comeback.

In fact, the moment before Yunho’s stopped sitting on the elephant of enlistment, they’d been discussing the episode Changmin had to film in the morning, albeit badly, since running lines tended to only work when both parties either had the script memorized or at least in front of them, and Yunho had kept getting supremely distracted by the things Changmin was doing with his hips as opposed to whatever the heck was coming out from between his lips.

Changmin is staring down at him still looking smug.

Yunho sighs. “Fair,” he says. “But your health is important, Changdol.”

Changmin scowls at him. “I’m fine,” he says. “What I need to do is not focus too hard on the verbal lashings I’m going to get from you all and instead work on actually playing like it’s been two months.”

Yunho reaches up to pat him on the back a few times. “There there,” he says. “You’re good at basketball, Changdol.”

Changmin narrows his eyes at him. “You just want me to fuck you some more,” he says.

“To make love to me some more,” Yunho corrects brightly, mostly to watch Changmin’s ears blush like they can’t help themselves. “And to continue, actually, you’re still quite definitely in me.” Yunho taps Changmin on the ass a few times with his feet to prove his point, then hisses when the move shoves Changmin in that much farther. The skin of his knot is fully and completely in Yunho now, and it’s expanding.

Changmin hisses as well. “Right.” His voice sounds broken. “Right, yes.” His hips start to move.

Yunho throws his head back and moans, pleased, then worries at his bottom lip as Changmin leans in to trace burning kisses up and down the line of his throat. “Shit. Changminnie--”

“You’ve distracted me from earlier,” his other half murmurs, even as his hips never falter. “You were about to tell me I’m the smartest person you know.”

“I absolutely was not,” Yunho says, clawing at Changmin’s shoulder blades a little and rocking his hips into the swing of Changmin’s thrusts. “I was just saying--if we both asked--oh--” He breaks off again, breath feeling well and truly punched out of his lungs and makes one of those embarrassing whining noises high in his throat.

Changmin agrees, moaning into Yunho’s jugular, and his knot finally catches on Yunho’s rim.

“ _Shit_ ,” Yunho hisses out, eyes falling shut, and he gives himself over to it fully, to Changmin pressing down into him like a man with a purpose, hips fucking in and in and in until he can’t anymore, until all that’s left of him are groans and sighs and praise and the slow drag of his cock up against Yunho’s prostate as the clench of Yunho’s ass milks him dry of every last drop.

It’s November.

Yunho well and truly went to his doctor and got a signed note of permission to wave in front of the faces of five managers because they were out of season.

Whoever designed omega biology, specifically the lack of ability to get pregnant any time outside of heat, clearly understood the appeal of having an alpha cock.

Yunho drags a hand through the sweaty mess of Changmin’s hair, eyes still tightly shut, and with a minute twist of his lips, purposefully clenches down to listen to the younger man cry out and shudder through the second half of his orgasm.

Yunho feels wet and messy and yet the sheets feel dry, and that alone is enough to have him hissing and twitching and breathing pleas against Changmin’s cheekbone. “Changdol. Touch me. Wanna come. Please.” His sentence comes out broken and barely intelligible and his hips keep working up up up into Changmin’s washboard abs in hopes of some sort of friction on his aching, swollen cock.

“Ngh,” says Changmin, which isn’t really much of anything. He works a hand down between them anyway and wraps callused fingers around Yunho’s dick. “Oops--” He sounds like he wants to say more, but Yunho is having none of it.

“Feel sorry for yourself and your awful alpha-ing later,” he snaps at Changmin, bucking into the grip Changmin has on his dick with a stuttered breath. “Orgasm now--oh, please--Changdol--”

Changmin is still coming in him, which he can feel with every rock of his hips; the shift of Changmin’s knot against Yunho’s rim is over-stimulation at it’s finest, and the combination of that plus Changmin’s hand on Yunho’s dick is almost enough to send him over and sky high.

Almost.

Changmin lessens up on his strokes just when Yunho’s about two seconds overtop the precipice with an all-too-knowing smirk, and Yunho wants to slap him.

“Changdol--”

“I’ll have you know I’m excellent at alpha-ing,” Changmin says, more than a little crossly and with entirely too much self-control given the pulse of his still-coming dick inside Yunho and the fact that he’s got his thumb rubbing teasingly along the slit of Yunho’s own cock like an absolutely unfair tool. “It’s just Minwoo is not--”

“Changdol, shut up about your drama--you didn’t even wear the school uniform--”

“Ah ha!” Changmin tightens his grip on Yunho’s dick a bit and finally hoists himself to the side to a little so that he’s not cutting off circulation of most of Yunho’s legs anymore, and so that the angle is better for his wrist. “I knew you only came because of the school uniform--”

“Changdollie. I love you. But if you do not make me come in the next two seconds I swear to fucking God--” Yunho breaks off to swear profusely in dialect when Changmin speeds up his hand considerably and twists around on the bed a little until he put his teeth into Changmin’s neck.

“No wait--” Changmin’s the one breathless and in awe despite the fact that Yunho is the one hurtling closer and closer to orgasm. “Minwoo can’t have hickeys--”

Yunho pulls of Changmin’s neck with a snarl, one hand worming around to slap Changmin directly on the mating mark. “Changdol--”

Changmin times it perfectly, pulls back from his groin so that his knot tries to lift free of Yunho’s body with a near audible drag and gets his free hand--the right one; the asshole is somehow managing to give Yunho the most mind-blowing hand job with his non-dominant hand--in between their bodies so that he can dig his _nails_ into Yunho’s right _hip_ \--

Yunho’s orgasm is earth-shattering and mind-blowing and leaves him blessedly, beautifully blank for what feels like minutes but is probably only seconds. Every single muscle in his body feels free of tension. He breathes.

“Yunho-hyung.”

Yunho doesn’t think he has the capacity to open his eyes. He tries to get his face to do something to indicate he’s listening to Changmin, but all he can manage is probably something like a dumb smile, and to barely keep pulling air into his lungs.

“Yunho-hyung.” Clearly Changmin is looking for more than just Yunho continuing to breathe.

“Mmm,” Yunho manages finally.

Changmin’s voice is shaking. “I found a problem with non-simultaneous orgasms.”

Yunho’s brain hurts. “You mean other than the fact that you’re still capable of using words like ‘non-simultaneous’ in a logical sentence?”

Changmin snickers, but then hisses, and moans. It’s not quite a happy moan, and that’s enough to make Yunho crack an eye open.

Changmin is still lying half off him, left hand left loosely around Yunho’s happily softening dick, and right hand underneath the both of them still hovering around Yunho’s mating mark. They’re all the way tied. If Yunho wanted to, he could try to see about pressing another baby orgasm out of Changmin. Only. Changmin’s dick doesn’t feel par the course for having been knotted for at least five minutes.

“Changmin-ah,” he says, voice hesitant.

Changmin brightens and lifts both hands up so that he can frame Yunho’s face on the bed. He’s still in Yunho, but now he’s more optimally centered, so perfectly that it’s natural for Yunho to spread his legs and settle both heels onto the bed somewhere near Changmin’s knees.

“Changmin-ah,” Yunho says again.

“The problem with non-simultaneous orgasms is you smell really, really good, Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says. He leans in to bury his face in Yunho’s neck immediately following his sentence and laps a tongue out to trace hangul into the beat of Yunho’s pulse.

“Yeah, well, you love me,” Yunho says dubiously, but his voice is starting to go breathless regardless. “Also--pheromones--” His own body is already automatically reacting to Changmin’s pheromones, which seem to have bypassed the usual, calming cooldown and gone straight back into ‘I’m going to be in you now’ with what feels like absolutely no refractory period. That should be concerning. Certainly, given the fact that Changmin is an alpha, and that neither of them are in anyway in heat or rut.

“Mmm, pheromones,” murmurs Changmin. His knot is going down, but not nearly enough to be standard. Instead, it’s just enough so that he can start to fuck into Yunho again, in tiny, near-aborted yet tingling thrusts.

“You’re not--making sense,” Yunho says. His lungs feel like they’re getting punched empty on each and every rock of Changmin’s dick. “What--”

“You smell extra good when you come, Yunho-yah,” Changmin says into Yunho’s neck, and _bites_.

Yunho throws his head back and stares up at Changmin’s hotel room ceiling, breath gone. Oh. Oh. _Oh_. “Oh--” he says. His cock feels like it’s trying to get hard.

Changmin seems to pick up on that, and even as his tongue keeps laving the skin below Yunho’s Adam’s apple, he drops his torso down to give Yunho’s something to fuck up against.

“This seems--” Yunho’s sentences are airy and near-nonsensical. “This seems like a bad idea--”

Changmin bites him again, then retreats so that he can finally put his mouth on Yunho’s. “It’s a wonderful idea--and your fault--”

Yunho lets Changmin kiss him for a few more seconds, then twists away so that he can speak. “You’ve got early filming tomorrow,” he protests. “I’ve got to sit on a plane--”

“That’s poor planning on your part--”

“I have schedules,” Yunho continues. “I only came to see you because I had to do some stuff for work--”

“Uh huh. What was it you were saying earlier about talking about work in bed?”

“God, shut up--” Yunho claws down the middle of Changmin’s back and takes mild glee in how the younger man hisses, then scratches angrily a few more times because he’s lost his sentence to the thrust of Changmin’s dick up against his prostate and the slick slide of Changmin’s abs, wet with precum and not nearly enough friction for Yunho to feel anywhere close to a second orgasm.

Changmin hisses, but fucks faster, almost spurred on by the slight hint of pain.

“And because you said you were wearing a school uniform,” Yunho finishes, pleased to have located and re-boarded his train of thought. “The only reason I came was because of the school uniform--”

“I thought the only reason you came was because I touched you,” Changmin says, voice low and gravelly.

Yunho wants to murder him, but only after he’s finished ramping back down onto his dick until Changmin pumps him full of come and knot again.

“You’re such a fucker, Changmin-ah,” he says. He leans up to kiss Changmin some more, which in theory Yunho realizes is counter to what he’s saying, but mostly he just really wants to be kissing Changmin again, especially since the younger man really does have an early call tomorrow and Yunho really does have a flight back to Seoul.

“Mmm, but you love me,” Changmin says, but it’s not arrogant so much as it is just a hint shy.

Yunho kisses him some more, eases the meeting of their mouths into something less rough and hot and passionate so that despite the fact that they’ve been at it for probably two hours and Changmin’s knotted him once and is on his way to another without so much as a break to separate, Changmin still ends up shivering into the kiss.

“I do,” Yunho says, barely pulling back to breathe and get the words out. “So very much--but I’m failing to see how this is a bad thing--”

Changmin’s hips stutter in beat to what feels like Yunho’s pulse, going rapid-fire fast underneath the skin of his throat where Changmin’s mouth has ended up, licking and gnawing and making Yunho raw and achy and not at all appropriate for travel.

“Fuck--Changdol--” He slaps a hand to the back of Changmin’s head with the intent of hauling him off, and then gets distracted when Changmin softens his attack to barely there kisses instead of biting. His hips twist on the backstroke, deeper this time and nudging his cockhead up against Yunho’s prostate in prefect counter to the way he’s still kissing over Yunho’s pulse point. “I only brought a sweater--”

“Borrow an undershirt,” Changmin breathes out. “I’ve got a spare--”

“What are you going to wear underneath the school uniform?” Yunho retorts, mind a whirl of sensation and roof of his mouth throbbing at the smell of them both. “I know what those things look like--I went to school.”

Changmin finally pulls up from Yunho’s neck to laugh at him, but it’s joyful and innocent and Yunho’s actual favorite noise, so he decides against trying to smack him for it. “You went to school--”

“Buttons!” Yunho says somewhat desperately, whining in between the consonants because he’s so close he can practically taste his own orgasm, heavy behind his teeth and heady in each pull of air into his lungs. Changmin’s nearly to a second knot and Yunho feels like he’s about to go crazy. “You wear dress shirts for school,” he manages to finish. “Your nipples--”

Changmin reaches up to flick at Yunho’s own nipples in response, which seems patently unfair and entirely unjustified, but leaves him near tears and scrabbling desperately at Changmin’s shoulder blades anyway.

“My nipples?” Changmin prompts breathlessly, hips still finding the energy to keep rocking in, in, in.

“They’ll be--oh--sensitive--” Yunho breaks off with a strangled sounding noise as he feels Changmin start to come for a second, should-be-impossible time, what feels like right up against Yunho’s prostate and with his knot somehow managing to expand even more against the overstimulated, oversensitive stretch of Yunho’s rim.

Changmin drops one hand away from Yunho’s chest so that he can cup Yunho by the right hip.

“Director-nim will have to call cut,” Yunho finishes finally, back arched and tight as a bow. “It’ll be bad. Your tie definitely won’t cover it--”

Changmin lets go of his hip and takes Yunho’s weeping, aching cock in hand, thumbing over the slit and rubbing at the base of it like he can’t quite help himself. “You’ve really put a lot of thought into this school uniform thing, haven’t you?”

Yunho throws his head back against the pillow and sobs through his orgasm, which seems to come in time to Changmin’s own release still going on inside of him. Everything is so wet and messy and two times the normal amount, and Yunho feels like an overextended rubber band. The flight is going to be miserable; he’s going to have to pull out all of the stops and wear all of his favorite pieces of clothing including that YSL sweater that Changmin goes cross-eyed for because they bought it in Milan post mating and also it’s garish and awful and somehow still looks good on you, shit, Hyung, Kyungjae-hyung put that in the fucking _photobook_.

Changmin’s still got his hand on him and his thumb circling like he wants to try for orgasm number three, and Yunho finally gets his higher brain functions working well enough to knock the man’s hand off his cock and uncurl his aching toes.

Clearly Changmin is expecting an answer, despite the near concave sink of his chest on every inhale, and the way he can’t quite keep from grinning down at Yunho like a besotted fool.

“Well I mean--” Yunho tries to start with. “You didn’t give me much to go on--”

“As you said, you have been to school,” Changmin tries to point out.

“--I was thinking a skirt, though,” Yunho adds before Changmin’s sentence has time to resonate. “Thigh highs--oh. Shit. Pretend you didn’t hear.”

Changmin is staring down at him with his mouth open, looking entirely uncertain on how to proceed. “Two orgasms is a good look on you,” he decides finally.

“You have an early call tomorrow,” Yunho says, aware his cheeks are bright red. “And I have a flight--oh--” He breaks off, hissing, because when he moved to unbend his legs, Changmin’s knot _pulled_ , and instead of being arousing and pleasant and Yunho’s second favorite thing to sex itself, it _stung_. “It’s not first class,” he says miserably. “Manager-hyung can’t get me a pillow.”

“Sorry.” Changmin looks it. “Non-simultaneous orgasms. Pheromones.” He’s the one blushing now, and it’s adorable.

Yunho wants to put him in his pocket and take him home like a Minnie mouse keychain. He smirks, remembering their fansigning the month before, and then frowns, remembering their argument two months before, and then purses his lips, stuck on the loom of his hiatus and his missed opportunities with Jun Jihyun-noona.

Changmin love taps him on the arm. “Stop making that face,” he says.

Yunho shifts a little more comfortably against the pillows and blinks up at him. “This is just my face, Changminnie.”

Changmin snorts at him, but dips to kiss him anyway. “Uh huh,” he says before he does it. “Wear sunglasses to the airport--”

Yunho goes still to accept the make out, and then stops, horrified. “Shit--Changdol--” He tries to sit up, angling his head this way and that way and feeling around the skin of his throat pointlessly for blemishes. “I really only have a sweater--”

“What sweater?” Changmin’s tone has gone no-nonsense like he knows the answer but is asking anyway because he has to confirm his fears.

Yunho doesn’t answer him, just twists them around even more so that he can better sit up on the bed. It pulls at where they’re tied, makes Changmin come just a hint more with a startled, high pitched noise, and reminds Yunho once again just how awful the flight home really is going to be.

“Yunho-hyung.” Changmin’s tone hasn’t changed. “Which sweater?”

“The one we bought in Milan--can you stop being the fashion police and take responsibility for your actions--”

“Your neck is fine,” Changmin interrupts, pressing a hand over top Yunho’s on the swell of his Adam’s apple. “I happen to be very good at thinking before biting.”

Yunho slaps him on the ass because he was asking for it, and then grins at the affronted, yet unsurprised look that earns him in return.

“It’s winter,” Changmin says. “The sweater we bought in Milan isn’t warm.”

“I happen to find it incredibly warm,” Yunho says. “And its brand name--it’s YSL--aren’t you the one always going out in designer things--”

“It’s a travesty, is what it is,” Changmin mutters. He’s finally started to go soft in Yunho’s ass, and Yunho slides off his dick with a minute hiss.

“You said you liked it,” Yunho protests, wincing as he closes his legs after what feels like hours. He glances at the clock. It actually has been hours. Yunho’s almost impressed.

“You pull it off,” Changmin says stiffly. “Shut up.”

“I pull you off, actually,” Yunho replies, and cackles when Changmin reaches for him. “Shower,” he says when the other man stares at him questioningly. “We’re disgusting.” He can feel Changmin leaking down the backs of his thighs, and honestly, that’s the one thing he doesn’t miss from heat sex. Some part of his brain is already shouting at him to fix the problem, by going ass in the air, and that’s just embarrassing and probably not even medically useful.

“You’re making a face again,” says Changmin, climbing to his feet and somehow beating Yunho the en suite bathroom.

“It’s really _just my face_ , Changdol,” Yunho sing-songs back.

“Whatever.” Changmin shivers only a little when Yunho slides up behind him at the side of the shower, one hand already under the spray to test the warmth. “Early call,” he says softly. “Flight--sitting? For like an hour?”

“Well _you_ don’t need to sit down for like an hour,” Yunho says pragmatically, and hides a grin against the back of Changmin’s neck when his other half shudders.

\--

They dye Changmin’s hair for the comeback and give Yunho a fresh haircut with buzzed sides and more red dye to wash down his drain every night he manages to have enough time to shower. They need to appeal to both markets--Korean and Japanese--because their final albums are due to be released one after the other. Its daunting. They’ve never done two comebacks simultaneously; they’ve recorded in any number of locations and in between any number of schedules, but Yunho finds it hard the first few weeks to switch back and forth between both languages, forgetting words and song lyrics in one only to produce them back again in another. It doesn’t help that their new single is going on both albums.

Between it all, Changmin is playing basketball in what free spare time he has and pulling all night recordings every other week, right up through the Bigeast Mission events and into the starts of their comeback preparations and their work in Japan.

So Changmin’s proposal falls by the wayside.

Which doesn’t mean Yunho forgets to bring it up when they’re not indisposed and more interested in getting off on each other than making important life plans, but it does mean that he stops having enough time to bring it up when they’re not indisposed and getting each other off.

To the point when he doesn’t even really _think_ about it until they’re both in Tokyo for comeback preparation, the album booklet shoot, and Changmin’s first away basketball match against a Japanese team.

“You really, really, don’t need to come with,” Changmin says, that morning, hunched over a bowl of breakfast and freshly out of the shower. His call time is in two hours, but he’s already up and pestering Manager-hyungs for which van they’re taking to the venue; Yunho’d only gotten up because they’d fallen asleep in Changmin’s bed the night before, and somehow Yunho had ended up both the bigger spoon and the obligatory ‘kill the alarm clock’ person when Changmin’s darned phone started blaring ‘Something’ and flashing directly into both their eyes.

He’d turned down Changmin’s distrusting question about if he wanted to share breakfast with all the practice of nearly ten years together, and settled onto the couch in sweatpants and a threadbare t-shirt. He’s still in the threadbare t-shirt.

Yunho lifts a brow. “Do I look broadcast ready to you?”

Changmin raises his head from his breakfast to give Yunho a truly unnecessarily leering once over. “You always look broadcast ready to me,” he says primly.

Yunho wants to roll his eyes at him. “Changminnie, I’m not going to do porn for you.”

There is a moment of silence where Changmin chokes on air and a mouthful of breakfast, and Yunho eyes him warily from his place on the couch, trying to remember the Heimlich maneuver and calculating the amount of time it’d take him to get to a phone to call Kyungjae-hyung.

“Yunho-hyung.” Changmin’s gone right back to inhaling his food. “Video chat sex is not porn.”

Yunho watches his other half fiddle with and worry at the fall of his freshly washed hair and frowns. “Uh huh. There’s a camera involved and me getting off--it’s basically porn.”

“I’m pretty sure it’d only be porn if I was selling it and making money off it--”

“Well aren’t you just an expert--shall we call your mom?”

“Leave my mother out of this--yah--I’m not above making Jungmin-hyung buy you bras--”

“Only if you make him buy you a school girl uniform--”

“Are you still on about that--Hyung, the drama is about more than just school--”

“Ahem--” It’s Jungmin-hyung, standing in the doorway since who knows when, looking supremely done with the situation. “I will not be buying anybody school girl uniforms or bras.”

Yunho closes his mouth and feels a flush settle high on both cheeks. “Hyung.”

Jungmin-hyung finishes taking his shoes off and crosses the threshold. “Are you ready?” he says to Changmin.

Changmin shovels more food into his mouth than Yunho would have thought possible--and his traitorous terrible dick twitches a little bit in response to the end of that thought process--before nodding. “What about my hair?” he says.

Yunho only understands him because ten years and as good as married.

Jungmin-hyung only understands him because he points at his perfectly falling bangs. “Your hair is fine.”

Yunho would agree, but Yunho also knows that the stylists are likely to take one look at him and fuss him into the next century.

Changmin frowns around his hamster cheeks but doesn’t try to speak anymore.

Yunho watches him chew and swallow for a few more seconds. “Wait I will come,” he says, hopping to his feet and heading towards the front room. “Let me get my coat--”

“You cannot,” Changmin squawks, voice gravelly because he’s only just finished swallowing more than two mouthfuls. “You can’t--you’re not dressed for broadcast--”

“I thought I’m always broadcast ready?” Yunho says, catching Changmin’s hands in front of him and lacing all their fingers together. “Did you not just say that?” He shifts his hips a little so that the threadbare t-shirt starts to try to slip off one shoulder and even goes so far to bat his eyelashes.

Changmin’s mouth falls open and his cheeks splotch red. “Video sex isn’t the same as a public basketball match in front of our entire fanclub!”

Yunho frowns. “Our entire fanclub wouldn’t fit in a gym, Changminnie,” he says. “They barely fit in Nissan Stadium.”

“I want to murder you,” Changmin enunciates, and scowls when Yunho leans in to kiss him. “No. I have a schedule. I have things to do. You have things to do. I’ll see you later for the tour booklet--no--”

“Your call time is in two hours,” Jungmin-hyung says helpfully, at the same time Yunho catches Changmin’s mouth with his own.

Yunho loves all their managers, but Jungmin-hyung has to be his favorite, second only to Kyungjae-hyung because Kyungjae-hyung would totally take the hint and leave them alone for at least half an hour of those two hours until Changmin’s call time.

Jungmin-hyung just starts shuffling back into the foyer and turns to face the door.

“I hate you,” Changmin says miserably when Yunho releases him and smiles.

“You don’t mean that,” Yunho says happily.

“Unfortunately, no,” Changmin agrees, and kisses him once more.

“Break a leg,” Yunho says a little breathlessly once they’ve pulled back. “Or. That’s not for sports is it.”

“I’d like to stay healthy before the tour, honestly,” Changmin says dryly, but he’s smirking. “You remember the lashing Youngmin-seonsaengnim gave me last month yes?”

“Actually, mostly I remember you being a terrible mate and not telling Youngmin-seonsaengnim I’d have all the time in the world for a drama with Jun Jihyun-noona,” Yunho retorts instantly, and laughs when Changmin growls and at him and tries to pinch the flat of a nipple.

“Déjà fucking vu,” Jungmin-hyung mutters under his breath, but then pastes a cheerful smile on his face when Yunho and Changmin turn to him. “Are we ready? Jooyoung said he’d meet us at the car.”

“Oh of course we can’t forget Jooyoung-hyung,” Changmin says, giving Yunho’s shoulder one careful squeeze, before stepping off towards his manager. “Jooyoung-hyung the man who could have been my mate, according to Jongsoo-hyung.”

Yunho frowns. “What?”

“Oh yeah.” Jungmin-hyung looks amused. “You know he was secretly actually offended--”

“I mean, he has met Yunho-hyung, yes?” says Changmin.

Yunho has no idea what he’s talking about but he’s starting to get a hunch, and the hunch is saying he should blush and not meet anyone’s eyes. Or own up to the fact that he’s eavesdropping and already missing Changmin despite the fact that the man is not two paces away from him.

“Nobody compares to Yunho-hyung, Jungmin-hyung,” says Changmin gravely, and then steps immediately out of their apartment and slams the door.

Yunho stares after him for what feels like minutes, before sighing. “He didn’t put his shoes on,” he says finally.

Jungmin-hyung’s eyes slip down to where Changmin’s good sneakers are already laid out and waiting only to be discarded for whatever brand deal KBS is pushing at the moment, and sighs as well. “Give him a moment.”

Yunho ducks his head. “I mean he’s right,” he says. “I’m a catch.”

Jungmin-hyung angles his head back to look at him, one eyebrow raised.

Yunho lifts one right back at him, and then cocks a hip waiting for the man to figure it out.

Jungmin-hyung’s mouth rounds out into an o. “You are a catch, Yunho-hyung,” he says. His tone isn’t quite sexy enough for what they’re doing, but Yunho knows Changmin. Jungmin-hyung doesn’t need to be sexy. Jungmin-hyung only need breathe at Yunho in a vaguely interested way, and Changmin will be back in the house before Yunho can even finish thinking it.

“Yah--what _are_ you two doing--we’re going to be late!” snaps Changmin, not even all the way back into the apartment. He strides in like a man on a mission, pink in the face but with his nose held high and stands directly in between Yunho and Jungmin-hyung like some sort of defunct magnet. Like a living breathing condom.

Or something. Something less sexual.

Yunho smirks at Jungmin-hyung overtop Changmin’s left shoulder, before turning to go back to the couch. “Win the game, Changdol,” he says as he goes. “Bigeast are watching.”

“Bigeast are always watching,” Changmin says darkly, but he continues to stare Jungmin-hyung down the entire time the man is waiting for him to lace of his sneakers.

“Still,” Yunho tells the idiot he calls home. “Win the game.”

“I fucking _will_ ,” says Changmin, and pulls the door shut with great, gleeful force.

They win the game. It’s not really all Changmin’s doing, but Yunho still kisses him the moment he’s through the door at their place afterwards. Yunho’s not entirely sure how he went from surreptitiously forcing Jungmin-hyung to send him frequent updates about the match to inviting all of the Cool Kiz cast into his and Changmin’s apartment, but he really doesn’t care at the moment, not with his tongue most of the way down Changmin’s throat, and both his hands fisted in the man’s hair.

“Get a room,” Hodong-hyung crows, and then ends up near run out of the entire apartment complex when Yunho tries to do just that.

\--

Park Jinyoung-sunbaenim is in Yunho’s apartment. Technically speaking, all of Changmin’s cohosts are in Yunho’s apartment, because Yunho’s apartment is Changmin’s apartment, and it’s a better option than going back to a hotel room for as much sleep as possible before they all have to fly back the next day. Also, they do have enough room for people to stay over, so alcohol is more of an option than it would be in the aforementioned hotel.

But only Park Jinyoung-sunbaenim is _JYP_ -sunbaenim, and so Yunho has spent the entire post-game get together trying to figure out how to get the man to whisper his own name. Changmin hasn’t even heard it yet, and Changmin’s been working with the man since September.

Regardless, Yunho’s social enough for the two of them, but even he’s a little tired by the time he’s hanging around the fringes trying not to stare too hard at the resident superstar and company man in his apartment.

His other option is Kang Julien, who is actually taller in person, and who Changmin keeps herding Yunho away from almost like he can’t help himself.

Which brings everything full circle--Yunho standing on the fringes of the party holding an empty drink glass because it’s not time for his tenth drink of the year (he’s saving that for their tenth anniversary because deep down he’s the worst kind of sap) next to Kang Julien.

Changmin is busy laughing with Hodong-hyung and John Park, which is the only reason Yunho’s ended up so close to Julien-hyung. Changmin hasn’t seen them.

“Hello,” Julien-hyung says pleasantly. He really is very tall.

Yunho stares up at him and feels squirmy on the inside because of it. “Hello,” he replies. He feels awkward. He wants to stalk over to Changmin’s little get together and smack the other man for making things awkward. It’s not his fault the first thing he’d said to Julien-hyung had been, ‘Oh. You smell like Changminnie.’ He’d been tired. Changmin’d just been ripped off his face by a laughing, sweating Kang Hodong. Yunho’s inhibitions had been out the window.

He had panicked.

And certainly, it didn’t warrant Changmin spending the entire evening somehow managing to keep them apart from each other.

Like clockwork, the two of them end up staring over towards Changmin and company.

“I swear he’s not doing it on purpose,” Yunho says quickly.

“I noticed we smell similar too,” Julien-hyung say almost as quickly.

They pause, well and truly awkward _once more_ , and then laugh helplessly.

“Hi,” Julien-hyung says afterwards, less wooden sounding and far warmer. He sticks out a hand for Yunho to shake, and Yunho takes it gratefully. “I’m Julien. It’s nice to officially meet you.” He smiles down at Yunho, and it’s a pleasant, charming sort of smile.

Yunho understands why the man is so sought after on television. “Hi,” he says, laughing at himself a little and shaking Julien-hyung’s hand back. “I’m Yunho.”

Julien grins. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” he says.

Yunho really does have to crane to look up at him--more so because of the limited space they have in the apartment. He and Changmin don’t have a small apartment by anyone’s standards--Changmin likes to take great pleasure telling Boa all about how they have a tall person apartment whenever she stops over because they’re both promoting in Japan--but Julien-hyung still manages to fill the space.

Yunho swallows. His brain wants him to continue to say idiotic things like, ‘You’re really tall.’

Julien-hyung’s smile falters. “I need my hand back,” he says politely, at the same time Yunho realizes he is still holding the man’s hand and at the same time _Changmin_ finally logs out from his celebrations and notices that Yunho and Julien-hyung are standing in a corner holding hands.

Yunho can only tell Changmin’s noticed because Hodong-hyung starts laughing and all the older married guys on Changmin’s show start to _tease_ him.

He lets go of Julien-hyung’s hand, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“I get it,” Julien-hyung says pleasantly. “It’s why we have such great chemistry on the show--similar pheromone footprint.”

Yunho nods. “That makes sense.”

Park Jinyoung-sunbaenim has wandered over to join Changmin’s group, which starts them back into teasing because Park Jinyoung-sunbaenim is newly mated and married.

“Changmin-ah.” Hodong-hyung is so loud Yunho wants to wince. “When are you going to marry my favorite dongsaeng?”

One of the others on the show mutters something about how he thought he was Hodong-hyung’s favorite dongsaeng, but that gets drowned out by Changmin’s startled and helpless burst of laughter. “Hyung.” He sounds like he has no idea what even to say to that.

Yunho takes pity on him and speeds up. “Changminnie already married me, Hyung,” he says, announcing his presence and looping an arm through Changmin’s.

Changmin twitches, so Yunho starts to pull back, but then Julien-hyung levels with them as well, and Changmin’s muscles clench and he holds on like a closing venus fly trap.

“As good as, anyway,” Yunho corrects. He shoots Changmin a conspiratory glance and also takes a gauge on how drunk the man is. Not that drunk--he does have filming the day after in Busan. Mostly Changmin is red in the face from embarrassment.

“Oh yeah.” John Park shoots Changmin a knowing look and starts nudging him in the free arm with the elbow. “You have.”

Yunho remembers very suddenly that most of these people have taken showers with Changmin in communal locker rooms and probably have firsthand knowledge of just how very much Yunho married Changmin. And where specifically he bit to do that.

He swallows.

Changmin’s ears blush even harder. “Shut up,” he tells John Park.

Yunho lets go of Changmin’s arm finally to turn to Hodong-hyung, and then gets lost a little bit on Park Jinyoung-sunbaenim. “Sunbaenim,” he says a little bit before he can help himself.

“Oh great. I’m never going to live that down by matrimonial proxy,” Changmin murmurs under his breath before Yunho can stomp hard on his foot.

“Can you…” Yunho trails off. “Would you mind…”

Park Jinyoung-sunbaenim just smiles at him, while Hodong-hyung crows with laughter.

“Are you allowed to call him Sunbaenim, Yunho-yah?” he says.

Yunho rolls his eyes.

Changmin rolls his eyes.

Park Jiyoung-sunbaenim doesn’t whisper his name like he clearly knows Yunho wants him to. Something about the stance of him makes Yunho think he has to dance a little more for it. Makes his teeth twinge. He’s reminded very suddenly that the man is an alpha. Most of the men in this room are.

He sobers a little.

Changmin’s breath hitches too quick for anyone else to notice.

“Yunho-yah,” Hodong-hyung says, picking up on the tension but done laughing. “Why do you have to take Changminnie away from us?”

Yunho turns his attention gratefully back to his Hyung. “The tour was booked months ago,” he says.

“Tours are tours,” Hodong-hyung dismisses. “This is history--Cool Kiz is history--”

“Yeah right,” someone starts to say.

“Like Strong Heart was history--”

“Strong Heart was amazing--”

“It’s our last tour, actually,” Changmin interjects, before things can get dicey. “So…”

Yunho swallows.

The mood feels very gone.

Hodong-hyung is frowning at them both. “Last?”

“I’m enlisting,” Yunho says, finding his voice somehow. “The tour was booked before the notice came.” He doesn’t mention they hadn’t finalized the dates, or that that hadn’t really mattered in the scheme of petitioning, because of how hard Japanese tours are to book period. He’s too busy thinking back to the month before--to that thing he said he’d find a way to bring up with Changmin or Kyungjae-hyung or Kim Youngmin-seonsaengnim himself.

Going together.

Putting TVXQ on a real hiatus, so they could come back sooner.  

The apartment feels subdued, and Yunho thinks he’s missed something.

He smiles.

“Congratulations,” Hodong-hyung says finally. The older man looks like he wants to pat Yunho on the back.

Yunho keeps on smiling. “Thank you--”

“Yunho-hyung.” Changmin steps up behind him, face dropping into the middle of Yunho’s back even though he’s taller, and abruptly cutting off whatever conversation Hodong-hyung had managed to start up. “I’m tired.”

Yunho stares straight ahead for a moment, then glances back over his shoulder at Changmin. “Okay,” he says. “Changdol--”

“It is kind of late,” Hyuk-hyung says pleasantly.

“It is,” Julien-hyung agrees.

“Some of you are on the guest room floor, yes?” Yunho says, still half glancing back at Changmin in concern.

The younger man hasn’t moved, even as his fingers clutch loosely into the fabric of Yunho’s shirt and his breath puffs out into the valley of Yunho’s shoulder blades.

“No. It’s fine. I think we can all make it.”

And then somehow it’s just Yunho and Changmin alone in the apartment.

Changmin’s let Yunho go, but he’s still following him around like a lost duckling looking like he’s thinking hard.

Yunho doesn’t know what to say. “Changmin-ah.”

“Look,” Changmin starts to say at the same time.

Yunho stares back at him, waiting.

“Let’s talk about it after comeback,” Changmin says finally.

Yunho blinks at him. “You mean the video.”

Changmin keeps looking at him, unbothered. “That is what I said.” He finally starts to look more relaxed as he turns towards the bedrooms. Yunho’s, Yunho notes. They always alternate, and it’s probably an alpha omega scent thing, but they’ve never felt the need to change.

“No, you said after the comeback. Which would be in February? When our birthdays are--do you want presents, by the way?”

Changmin walks them both into the bathroom without even pausing. “Have we ever done presents?”

Yunho thinks about the late night perusing he’s been doing on expensive jewelry websites since October and licks his lips nervously. “No, but--”

“Then we’re not doing presents,” Changmin decides. “Not unless there are extenuating circumstances like--” He breaks off, twitchy, and pulls out both their toothbrushes and hands Yunho’s to him.

“Enlistment?” Yunho says dryly but wets the thing under the sink anyway.

“Like me not seeing you for four years,” Changmin says. “Or… two?”

“After the video,” Yunho determines, and shoves the toothbrush in his hand into Changmin’s open mouth before the man can protest.

“That’s yours,” Changmin says anyway, unintelligible around the toothbrush.

Yunho understands him because ten years and soulmates. He smirks. “What’s mine is yours, Husband-yah,” he says pleasantly. “We are as good as married--”

“They would never have let me live it down if I made a fuss about it,” Changmin says with great dignity, pulling the tooth brush out of his mouth and turning fully away from Yunho in front of the sink.

Yunho watches him squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom and brush most of his teeth and tries not to feel too giddy about the fact that Changmin hasn’t stolen his actual toothbrush back. He watches the younger man finish with his mouth and start in on his skincare, meets his eyes carefully in the mirror, and wets Changmin’s toothbrush so that he can follow suit.

“What’s yours is mine, Changdol,” he says again.

Changmin doesn’t protest.

Yunho’s heart thumps.

“So, do you have Julien-hyung’s number?” Yunho says right as Changmin is passing him on his way back out of the bathroom, and cackles when the younger man turns back to him with flaming cheeks and a downturned mouth.

\--

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the comments and kudos! They really motivate me to keep writing and update faster!
> 
> [Tumblr masterpost](http://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/174880265430/right-now-you-and-i-are-clumsy-but-youre) || [Twitter masterpost](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1007212985092313089)


	5. bubble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably another _Arms_ chapter.
> 
> Betaed by Hexmen. All other mistakes are my own.

**5\. Bubble**

\--

Yunho takes one look at the extraordinarily short pants they’re planning to give Changmin for the main dance parts of their MV and bursts out laughing.

He can’t help himself.

The atmosphere of the shoot has been considerably boosted by the seven gorgeous women SM brought in from MDI Model Management, and even Yunho, taken and embarrassed and not really looking forward to having to cozy up to two of them for a good portion of the day’s shoot, can’t help but be affected by the good mood on set.

And Changmin’s outfit choice is just funny.

“What?” Changmin says, stuffed into a coat overtop his white and red opening outfit, standing incredibly still so that Shyyoung-ssi can continue touching up the spray-ons covering his neck and the backs of his hands.

“Nothing,” Yunho says. His own neck and hands are itching just watching Changmin get painted, and some dumb part of him is still sour that it’s his own name on his neck. He gets it. Putting anything other than U Know--let alone anything remotely Changmin’s--on his neck would be going too far, but Yunho still feels weird about it. Even though that’s the point, diminished slightly by the taboo of it.

Changmin is raising an eyebrow at him.

Yunho gives in. “I just think it’s good that I didn’t bite you on the ankle after all,” he says with great dignity and all the air of imparting a grave secret.

Changmin’s mouth falls open and his cheeks streak bright red. “Hyung!” His voice is very, very high.

Yunho grins. “Although I did see they got you high socks. Very school boy, I’d say.”

“Hyung!” Changmin’s voice has somehow managed to be even higher.

Yunho keeps grinning at him. “You might want to stop blushing, Changminnie,” he says pleasantly. “After this we have to shoot with the models.”

Changmin scowls. “They have names,” he says.

Yunho knows that. He’d introduced himself to the two women he was supposed to have the most connection with and then stumbled his way over their names--Jess and Diana--with minimal embarrassment and awkwardness. There had been a lot of bowing and bad English and Yunho feeling quite like a squid in comparison watching them get waves put in their hair and highlighter splashed across their cheekbones.

Changmin’s got less of a language barrier than Yunho does, but even he had been subdued when they’d been paraded in for introductions.

“I know they have names,” he tells Changmin, watching their tattoo artist finish up with the back of the man’s hands and lean in to inspect the artwork on Changmin’s neck.

Something in Yunho’s chest growls, and Changmin rolls his eyes. “Down, boy,” he mutters.

It’s nondescript. He slurs a lot. They can probably get away with it.

Yunho still stiffens, darts a nervous look around the stage at all the strangers on the lot with them, and then narrows his eyes at Changmin.

Changmin stares back at him with both eyebrows lifted as if it’s Yunho’s fault. But then maybe it is--Yunho’s the one standing around loitering when he could be wearing his own winter coat or reviewing the camera set up or trying to strike up another awful conversation with Jess-ssi and Diana-ssi prior to having to walk fingers up and down their bare arms. Or something. Yunho thinks that was in the storyboards.

Shyyoung-noona deems Changmin’s neck ready for camera, and turns to review Yunho’s fake tattoos briefly, before leaving the two of them with mild bowing.

Yunho smiles after her and doesn’t scratch where his neck is all of the sudden itching.

Changmin takes two very deep breaths. “I’m nervous,” he says.

When Yunho looks at him, he tilts his head over towards the models.

“I’m shy,” Changmin says. He snorts down at himself, and clearly, it’s an inside joke. Probably one of the camera men already cornered Changmin for an interview and the younger man rambled on about that in both languages.

Yunho understands. They cornered him earlier and he gave some sort of vague answer about being excited that he’s ninety percent certain will not be making _any_ DVD cuts. In Yunho’s defense, Changmin had taken that exact moment to laugh at something one of the models was saying to him, ducking his head when they all unsurprisingly giggled about his imperfectly perfect English. The combination of nerves regarding the upcoming shoot and the fact that all the new people on set meant Yunho had to be extra careful with how possessively he stared at Changmin had left him barely capable of remembering what the song was called, let alone able to answer questions about it.

“Are you nervous?”

Changmin’s question startles Yunho out of that little jealous train of thought and he rather abruptly closes his mouth. “What?”

“Are you nervous?” Changmin sounds like he’s humoring him. “About all of the groping.”

Yunho blinks. “The instructions were just to like. Touch them.”

Changmin keeps staring at him. “Well, what do you think they told them?” he says.

Yunho keeps blinking. “‘This is Yunho and Changmin and they’re from TVXQ and they’ll be filming with you today?’”

Changmin opens and closes his mouth a few times. “Yeah, you’re nervous,” he decides eventually. He skips around so that he’s standing directly in front of Yunho still in his oversized winter jacket and fucking puts both perfectly painted hands on Yunho’s lapels.

The situation goes from ‘getting ready to shoot their comeback music video’ to ‘we’re going to prom and/or getting married’ in about three seconds flat, and Yunho makes a punched out sounding noise and tries to run away from Changmin.

“Hyung.” Changmin is having none of that. “Don’t be nervous. You don’t even need to do anything that physical.”

Changmin’s models are Abbey and Olena, and he has to pretend to kiss them both. Yunho doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel about that, but mostly he finds it hilarious.

“Uh huh,” he says.

Changmin gives Yunho’s lapels one last straighten and lets go, but doesn’t step away from him.

Yunho stares up at the near shelf-like slope of his golden hair and wants to kiss him. It’s unfortunate he can’t. “Who’s shooting with us after this?” he says.

Changmin’s eyes dart down to Yunho’s mouth like the mind-reading other half of Yunho’s soul that he is. “The band,” he says.

“Oh yeah.” Yunho doesn’t know how he could forget about that excitement. Half the draw of the song was the live instruments behind the genre, and he’s actually really looking forward to having the instruments on set.

“Mmm.” Changmin should probably step away from Yunho or something, but instead he just stands there staring down at him with his mouth turning up at the corners.

Yunho has a feeling that if he dared to breathe in, he might get dizzy off of how very lovely Changmin smells. He breathes in. His thoughts go fuzzy. “Do you think they can tell I’m an omega?” Yunho says.

That wasn’t what he wanted to say. He’d been trying to say something about the band, about the horns, maybe? Or even just about their incredibly gorgeous and tall company, but instead he’s high on Changmin’s pheromones and sending his poor manager to an early grave.

One of the newer staff with them rushes Kyungjae-hyung some water, but the man just waves him off and dry heaves a few times through the sudden onslaught of coughing while leveling a truly acidic look in Yunho’s direction.

“The… band?” Changmin is saying, brows furrowing. “Um.”

“No, the models,” says Yunho, because he’s apparently still a little high on the pheromones and never one to do things halfway. “Jess-ssi and Diana-ssi.”

Changmin repeats the English names under his breath so automatically Yunho wonders if he even knows he’s doing it. Then he just sort of stares at Yunho, half frowning, half worrying, for all of thirty seconds.

Yunho fights the urge to stomp on his feet. “Changmin-ah.”

“Right yes,” Changmin says, snapping to attention. He steps back away from Yunho immediately and looks over towards the camera men, trying to determine if they’re ready and needed on set for the opening scenes.

Yunho doesn’t want him to go, though, so he reaches out to take him by the wrists.

Poor Kyungjae-hyung starts talking incredibly loudly over to their right.

Yunho ignores him. “Changmin-ah,” he whines. He _whines_. He’s not above whining.

“I don’t know, probably,” Changmin says, eyes stuck on where Yunho is holding him by both wrists. “Hyung. It’s not a big deal--who are they even going to tell--”

“Well I’m pretty sure Jess-ssi isn’t an omega,” Yunho says pragmatically, tracing a line along the vines Shyyoung-noona drew on top of Changmin’s left hand. “So I wouldn’t want you to get jealous, is all.”

“Isn’t an omega--what--why were you smelling them--”

“Changmin-ah.” Yunho lets go of Changmin’s hands with one last stroke along the ridges of his knuckles. “Breathing and smelling are kind of synonymous--”

“You’re such a dick, Jung Yunho, I hope you die alone,” Changmin snaps, and Kyungjae-hyung starts making even more dying whale noises. Almost like he’s crying-laughing.

Yunho just keeps staring at Changmin with a smile on his face, paying careful attention to the way his cheeks are flooding with pink again, even under all the makeup and the telling off he’ll be sure to get if he so much as flushes during the scene with the girls.

From where he’d been standing at Changmin’s right, Jooyoung-hyung sighs. “Right,” Changmin’s manager says. “They’re ready for you.”

Yunho nods, taps Changmin on the hands one last time, and steps around the man so that he can make his way over to their makeshift hallway.

\--

They film the first dance bit, and Changmin ends up in front of Yunho on his knees. He’s rambling on about the number of takes they have to do because he doesn’t want more, but at least half their camera crew is at present losing it in the background, so Yunho ends up laughing embarrassedly and trying to haul Changmin to his feet in a not-so-obvious fashion.

“You’re an asshole,” Yunho tells Changmin, tugging helplessly at the other man’s hands. “Get up.” He’s so happy they’re not mic’d and that the models have left the premises. “Changdol.”

“Please,” Changmin cajoles. He’s being extra careful to enunciate, probably so that their laughing camera men can actually capture what’s going on. He’s also speaking Japanese.

Yunho will kill him. “No pictures,” he says, turning towards their audience and fake smiling like his life depends on it.

Changmin takes hold of Yunho’s hands and continues to earnestly plead. “It’s fine that I stumbled for that last one. Nobody will notice.”

“I will notice,” Yunho grumbles. “Changdol-ah.”

Changmin tightens his grip on Yunho’s fingers and fucking _begs_.

Their camera crew loses it all over again.

“I will kiss you so that this footage becomes unusable and there is no context or closure on the DVD,” Yunho threatens alongside a still nervous smile. “Changdol--”  

“I dare you,” says Changmin, and doesn’t even finish before Yunho is hauling him up to kiss him.

It’s not at all tame, probably not work appropriate, and makes their staff break out into half serious groans. Kyungjae-hyung takes up his megaphone-voice and starts loudly announcing a set-wide camera cleanse, you know the drill.

“We should fire him instead of promoting him to the new girl group,” Changmin tells Yunho’s bottom lip. His hands are trembling a little in Yunho’s hold, almost like nervous energy, if Yunho didn’t know better. It’s self-control--the roaring monster in Changmin’s belly as barely leashed as the one in Yunho’s chest, and it’s somehow sexier than if Changmin fucked protocol and threw Yunho down on the nearest hard surface to fuck _him_.

“Mmm?” Yunho doesn’t want to pull away from Changmin’s lips, but he knows he has to do so regardless. “Since when do you have any say in what happens to my staff?”

Changmin shoots him a wry look and nips him on the lip before they part. “Hey,” he says. “What about what’s mine is yours?”

Yunho thinks about the slightly twitchy way Changmin’s been going about making his loan payments on his apartment--and the way the man’s mobile spending seems to have gone down to near zero, almost in preparation for something bigger than in-app purchases. He thinks about making a home with him. He bites his lower lip, hard.

“Yeah, don’t do that,” says Changmin, brow furrowed. “You’re not allowed to have the red bitten lips. That’s my thing.”

Yunho pauses. “What?”

Changmin taps him on the seam of the mouth, then leaves his fingers there like an afterthought. “The red bitten lip thing,” he says. “Lips are my _thing_.”

Yunho doesn’t want to read double entendre into that. “I thought ears were your thing,” he says slowly, reading anyway. “Or abs?”

Changmin’s eyes dip down to his slowly slimming waistline with an almost wistful sort of look. “No stripping for comeback,” he says happily. “Ramen after this.”

Yunho wants to smack him. “Excuse you, I’m supposed to be eating carefully--”

“It’s not my fault you always look at me like the world would end if I didn’t offer you some,” says Changmin.

“It _is_ your fault because your metabolism is _unreal_ ,” Yunho snaps back.

“I’m glad you didn’t make a big deal out of that last sentence because I’m very sorry,” says Changmin.

Yunho’s cheeks burn red. “Changdol-ah.” He might be sputtering. “We are on set!”

“You are.” It’s Kyungjae-hyung, directly from behind them. “And we’re all so grateful that Changmin isn’t on his knees anymore--”

Changmin starts to drop down as if he can’t help himself and Yunho tightens his grip on the man’s hands without even pausing.

“--But we’d also like to get out of here before the sun rises--”

“Right, yes,” Yunho says, letting go of Changmin’s hands. “Where were we?”

There is a pause.

Kyungjae-hyung appears to be engaging in an epic staring conversation with a point over Yunho’s shoulder, a point that no doubt is Changmin.

Then Changmin must grin, because when he speaks Yunho can practically see his eyes going mismatched. “We were with me,” he says. “On my knees--”

“Oh,” Yunho says, turning, breathless and hating himself a little for being that way. It’s because Changmin wasn’t looking at him when he said that. All Yunho had to go off of was sense memory and muscle memory, all of which was saying fuck the music video shoot and let Changmin get on his knees one more time.

“We’ll take five,” Kyungjae-hyung says finally. “We’ll take five--Yunho-yah I swear to God--”

“I’m not going to fuck him in five minutes,” Yunho says pleasantly, finally turning around so that he can make eye contact with Changmin.

His other half is staring back at him with his mouth slightly parted and his hair falling in loose curls across his eyes.

“I’m just going to make sure he’s warmed up enough.”

Changmin’s breathing changes.

“He tripped for the last take--so we need to do three more, I think--”

And the mood goes from rapid escalating sexual tension right back down to scowling in the time it takes for Yunho to finish conjugating his verbs.

“Yah, Yunho-hyung!” Changmin exclaims and looks ready to drop back down onto his knees in a considerably less fun way.

“You said it, not I,” Yunho says. “I hadn’t actually noticed.” That’s a lie; he noticed; that’s why Changmin was on his knees in the first place; to keep Yunho from heading over to the camera to affirm what he’d seen and give Changmin a stern talking to. “Or would you rather we leave it? It’s only our tenth anniversary.”

Changmin’s teeth click together and he glares. “You’re a piece of work, Yunho-hyung,” he says finally. His ears are blushing and he makes to head back over to the marked bit of floor where they have to dance.

Juhee and the other dancers smile at him when he reaches them.

“I’m your piece of work, though,” Yunho calls after him, and grins when Changmin fakes punches at him, yet still shifts his weight like he wants to stroke his own ass.

“I hate you,” he tells Yunho dutifully when they get into position for the start of the dance. “Stop talking about how I’m yours in public.”

“Changdol, honestly,” Yunho mutters right before the cameras get back into position and the director gestures for the music to start. “Nobody is going to notice if you want to tap your own ass in public--”

Changmin trips on the ropes before they’re even really in play, and the director yells out cut with only mild consternation.

Changmin goes bowing and apologizing and red-faced immediately, while simultaneously pointedly ignoring the smirk Yunho shoots him, and managing to stomp on Yunho’s foot three freaking times before they get back in position.

“He’s going to kill you one day,” Hyoje says under his breath right before they start the next run.

“I know,” Yunho says. “But probably by orgasm, and what a way to go.”

They don’t ruin the next two takes--in fact, they’re amazing--but Changmin still ends up pulling Yunho aside once they’re cleared to go home so that he can pin him to a wall and _ravish him_ , all the while growling up against Yunho’s ear and neck and cheekbone about how he’s the _worst_ and he should come with a fucking _warning_.

Yunho just takes shuddering, whimpering breaths and tries to keep standing.

\--

Yunho wonders if he can get away with blaming it on the holidays. On Christmas. On the slow loom of their reality: ten years ago today (give or take ten days, since Yunho’s not _that_ much of a sap), they stood together on a stage together for the first time; ten years ago today (give or take nothing since they’d been already in the final planning stages weeks prior to debut), fate brought them together, aligned TVXQ and Changmin with Yunho perfectly to bring them here.

They’d lost more than Yunho likes to think about along the way, but they’ve also gained more than Yunho had dared to imagine at sixteen, stubborn, and ready to sign away his family in search of his dreams.

His dreams had ended up including his family, all 185 centimeters of it, and more than ten years ago that family stumbled into his life and dared to hold his hand in front of Lee Sooman.

Yunho wants to look across an aisle five years from today and say _I do_.

But it’s almost the holidays, and everyone is more sentimental during the holidays. So that’s probably it, probably why, because the alternative is telling Changmin he was right, and surviving ten more years of ‘I told you so’.

Regardless, in between their Japanese schedules and their Korean schedules and prep for their more extensive Korean schedules and Changmin’s basketball games, Yunho makes up his mind. He walks off a Japanese CF set and thinks two years would be easier than five.  

And then he decides to avoid the subject like the plague itself, made easier by his cameo in _International Market_ and Changmin’s continued filming for _Cool Kiz_ and _Mimi_.

“I heard you asked Kyungjae-hyung if it would be possible for you to delay all the way to December,” Changmin says one day on their way back from a grueling all-day rehearsal for the Time Slip concerts that had somehow also included a phone call with Sungchang-hyung and their Japanese staff to hammer out tour details beyond ‘twenty-seven days five domes.’

They’re in the same car home, because it’s late enough that nobody had felt like disputing Kyungjae-hyung’s insistence on not driving, and the moment Yunho said he’d do it, Changmin had practically manhandled them both into the nondescript van he took to SM.

Jungmin-hyung lost Rock Paper Scissors and ended up stuck driving Yunho’s car behind them.

“Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says when Yunho keeps staring down at his phone and not responding. “Did you or did you not ask Kyungjae-hyung about delaying your enlistment until December.”

Clearly Yunho hadn’t been avoiding the subject well enough. He yawns. He’s only been back in Seoul for twenty-four hours, and the conversation occurred somewhere overtop the Korean peninsula while their plane was preparing to land.

He doesn’t look up from his phone and yawns again instead. He’s not jet lagged from his stay in Bangkok, but he’s playing it up anyway. It’s already saved him from more than a few awkward conversations with a more than nervous-because-of-the-award-show-he-has-to-go-to-tomorrow Changmin and ended with Yunho having a greater appreciation for Changmin’s long-enough-to-pull hair. Yunho thinks blowjobs should be the standard cure for jetlag and would be willing to testify to that fact.

He clears his throat. “That’s ridiculous,” he says, already reviewing who was on that particular flight into Seoul and trying to determine the best way to murder and destroy Myunghwan-hyung for being a giant softie and weak to Changmin’s frankly unfair and adorable mismatched, puppy dog eyes. “It’s December right now.”

Changmin doesn’t drop it, nor does he seem to appreciate Yunho’s attempts at humor. “Yunho-hyung.”

“Myunghwan-hyung clearly loves you more than me,” Yunho says. He wants to stick his nose in the air.

Changmin appears unimpressed. “Yunho-hyung,” he says again, but his tone has softened considerably.

Yunho feels a flush settle high across his cheekbones. “Five years is a really long time,” he says eventually. “In fact, you’re the one who keeps telling _me_ that.”

Changmin’s mouth parts in surprise, and Yunho feels himself get even more twitchy and defensive.

“What?” he says. “I mean, you don’t really think you can get cleared to go in July, do you?”

There is a beat.

Yunho has a horrible, sinking feeling. He swears. “Shit, I mean-- Fuck, Changminnie. I didn’t mean to presume--only if you want to--”

Changmin is still looking back at him.

“You didn’t mean it,” Yunho continues. “Fuck. I mean, that’s fine. It’s fine. I didn’t mean to presume--” He’s repeating himself like a broken record and he wants the ground to swallow him whole. “I’ll just go in July. Kyungjae-hyung didn’t do more than hum at me and it’s not like they’re going to change their mind in between now and the tour ending like. We announced the tour. People have paid for the tour. Changmin please _say_ something--”

“Ten years ago today, I was getting ready to sign away thirteen years of my life because the first time we met, you told me I should just quit,” Changmin says.

Yunho is glad for the interruption, but also absolutely scared shitless. He swallows somewhat frantically a few times. It’s highly likely Manager-hyung has been circling the block to his new apartment, despite the fact that Jungmin-hyung has for sure pulled into the garage already. “That can’t be the only reason.”

“Well, I didn’t mind Junsu-hyung,” Changmin says, and ducks when Yunho punches at him. “The rest of you were okay too--”

“Changdol,” Yunho protests. He likes that things don’t feel _weird_ talking about their origins anymore, since all past years they’d been strictly focused on the anniversary after. But it still feels _weird_. They’ve been together just the two of them for almost as long as they were ever anything else, and that feels important.

Changmin is still smiling pleasantly back at Yunho from his place next to the window in the van. “Really I was just in it for the possibility of really good food,” he tells Yunho. “And also, to prove you wrong.”

Yunho swallows a response and looks him full in the face. “Changmin, I love you,” he says, way too close to crying, but okay with that, because in five days it’ll be Christmas and in six days it’ll be their anniversary.

Changmin makes an involuntary noise in the back of his throat that very much also isn’t crying.

“Separate vans from now on,” Jooyoung-hyung says from the front of the car. He sounds like he’s the one crying, which Yunho would find sweet, if the man wasn’t continuing to talk. “I don’t care if you’re staying in only one apartment--”

“Yunho-hyung’s,” Changmin says brightly. “It’ll be easier when we have to do four music shows a week, and his kitchen is bigger.”

“Wait. What?” Yunho tries to say. “Don’t I get a say in that?”

“Also, his couch is more comfortable because it’s new--”

“Yah… You’re just saying that because you bought it--”

Changmin meets Yunho’s eyes full on. “I did buy it,” he says. “For you.”

Yunho’s brain produces their earlier discussion of couch, adds in their earlier use of the said couch, and swallows.

“My place,” he says.

“I’m glad we agree,” Changmin says. “Not that it matters--you mated me, what’s yours is mine.”

Yunho blinks. “Oh, is it,” he says dryly. “I guess I didn’t read the fine print of that agreement.”

“How irresponsible,” Changmin says. “People could take advantage of that. Like our company--”

Kyungjae-hyung barks out a startled sounding laugh from the front seat next to Jooyoung-hyung, and Yunho takes advantage of the break to Changmin’s speaking to lean in so that he can better use the other man as a makeshift in-car pillow.

“Oh true,” he says into Changmin’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t want SM to take advantage of me.”

“Or control you,” adds Changmin, shifting so slightly Yunho can’t figure out if he’s imagining it, but somehow also becoming a much more comfortable pillow. “Or dictate each and every important life decision--”

“I’m marrying Changmin,” Yunho interrupts suddenly. “And if we go together--”

“We’re going together,” Changmin interrupts, dropping a hand around Yunho’s shoulders to give him a full body squeeze.

Yunho sits up rather suddenly out of the airplane style slouch, and stares at him with his mouth parted. “Really?”

“Of course,” Changmin says. “It was my idea to begin with.”

Yunho frowns. “And you wonder why you had to hear it from Myunghwan-hyung,” he mumbles.

Changmin’s lips twitch.

“Ah hah,” Yunho says, mostly smoke and mirrors. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Don’t kill papa bear hyung,” Changmin says. “We love him.”

“I love _you_ ,” Yunho says again.

“I love you too,” Changmin replies. He leans in to kiss Yunho.

“I’m going to have to stop you there,” Kyungjae-hyung says brightly. “As the resident representative of the big bad evil themselves--”

“I didn’t know you hated Yunho-hyung that much,” says Changmin.

“You represent and manage me, you idiot,” agrees Yunho.

“--it is my duty to control each and every aspect of your daily life,” Kyungjae-hyung continues, unperturbed. “You assholes.”

Yunho grins.

“We should definitely keep him away from that new girl group,” Changmin says. “That feels too much like a reward. He doesn’t deserve a reward. The fame has _clearly gone to his head_ \--”

“And my first decree is to enact a strict no kissing after nine p.m. policy,” announces Kyungjae-hyung, too happy and bright for how late it is.

“Amen,” Jooyoung-hyung says. “I support that--”

Yunho is pouting before he can help himself. “Does it really make you uncomfortable?” he asks. “Changminnie just has a really good mouth. And he said he loved me.”

“He’s always saying he loves you,” Kyungjae-hyung returns immediately. “He hasn’t yelled at you to keep your feet off the dashboard in weeks.”

“We’ve been taking separate cars,” Changmin points out.

“You’d have texted him regardless,” says Jooyoung-hyung. “Your point is irrelevant.”

Changmin’s ears flush. “I would not.”

“You kind of would,” Yunho says, thinking of the multitude of interviews he gave late 2012 about Changmin’s ability to call him out for keeping his shoes on in the apartment. “Everybody knows all about your sixth sense for disorganization--”

“For the hazard you pose to yourself and everything around you,” Changmin retorts, but he’s smiling.

“But you love me anyway,” Yunho says, also smiling.

“I do,” Changmin admits, helplessly.

Jooyoung-hyung and Kyungaje-hyung chorus out groans.

Yunho frowns some more. “Does it really bother you? Because I really can’t help myself I mean Changmin’s mouth is really, really good--”

Changmin barks out a startled, embarrassed laugh, like he hadn’t heard Yunho before, or had just focused too much on the ‘I love you’ half of his statement. “Okay, Hyung, if they were actually uncomfortable that would _not_ help _at all_ \--”

“But you’re not, though, right?” Yunho continues, actually a little concerned, and frowning. “You’re all fine--”

“Yunho-yah.” Kyungjae-hyung turns to meet Yunho’s eyes directly. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Yunho blinks.

“You’re like my family,” Kyungjae-hyung says. “Of course, I’m only happy for you.”

Jooyoung-hyung snorts, but nods as well. “I won’t lie, I’d mostly like you to stop taking hits to the state of my love life--”

“Enlisting at the same time two years early is actually _unfair_ ,” Kyungaje-hyung puts in.

“--but yeah, no. I love you guys. How could I be upset that you love each other?”

Yunho’s heart feels like it’s grown three full sizes in two whole minutes.

“But I will say nobody needs to hear about Changmin’s dick, Yunho,” Jooyoung-hyung adds after a moment. “Like. There are things we didn’t need to know.”

“You’re just jealous,” Changmin says, and settles smugly into his seat.

Yunho reaches out to hold him by the hand, brightening.

Changmin palms him by the cheek before he’s so much as finished moving, shoving Yunho’s entire face away from him without holding back at all. “That was not an invitation,” he says. “We’re becoming _that couple_ , Hyung, _gross_ \--”

“But Changminnie,” Yunho says, more than a little muffled by all of Changmin’s hand. “We are that couple.”

“That’s true,” Kyungjae-hyung says. “Last night you refused to go into your house without having the last kiss.”

Changmin sputters.

“You’d have thought Yunho was returning from more than three days, or something,” puts in Jooyoung-hyung. “Also you’ve got him in your phone as ‘Hyung-ah’ with three hearts.”

Yunho’s mouth falls open, and he turns to Changmin feeling gleefully like an anime princess, complete with eye sparkles and flushing cheeks. “Changdol-ah,” he says happily. “That’s adorable.”

“I do _not_ ,” Changmin protests. “He is _not_.”

“I’m afraid you’re just in my phone as ‘Changdol’,” Yunho says. “And other people call you that--”

“He is _not_ in my phone as ‘Hyung-ah’!” Changmin continues incensed. He’s stopped shoving at Yunho’s face and has instead settled for slapping at Yunho’s hand when Yunho reaches across the car to try to grasp his fingers. “I didn’t even put him in my phone! Minho did, and Minho is an idiot who thinks ‘King of the Stage’ is a clever name--” Changmin breaks, off, faintly salmon colored. “Fuck you,” he tells Jooyoung-hyung. “You’re fired--”

Yunho finally takes hold of Changmin’s hand so that he can press kisses to the back of it and watches Changmin cycle through horror, resignation, and affection.

He doesn’t say anything and squeezes Yunho’s hand back.

“I told you so,” Jooyoung-hyung says. “You are that couple.”

Changmin glowers at him angrily but doesn’t dispute it.

Yunho reads between the lines and sobers. “We’re actually not, though,” he says. “We’re too private.”

“You still wouldn’t go inside the house without getting the last kiss,” Jooyoung-hyung says. “And you’re holding hands.”

“Haven’t we been circling the block for the last ten minutes?” Changmin says. He hasn’t let go of Yunho’s hand, fingers stroking gently over the lines of Yunho’s palm. “And also fuck off. Our anniversary is in six days.”

Jooyoung-hyung mimes sealing his lips and pulls to a stop in front of Yunho’s apartment.

\--

“Are you sure about enlisting early?” Yunho says to Changmin right as the man comes offstage dressed as a horse.

The tour VCR only affords them a set amount of time, and really Yunho shouldn’t be taking the time to have a conversation with Changmin, but they’re well enough into the show and honestly, he’d taken one look at the man’s blissed out, sweaty face and panicked.

Changmin blinks at Yunho, stares pointedly down at the attached half of the horse still hanging off his lower back, and then lifts one eyebrow. “Really?” he says. “Now?”

Yunho colors slightly. “Shut up,” he says.

“Hyung.” Changmin’s hair is wet and falling into his eyes and Yunho wants to help comb it to the side, but he keeps his hands at his side.

His fingers are twitching.

Changmin’s lips seem to parrot the action back at him, no doubt aware of Yunho’s desire.

He thinks that’s probably unfair, honestly. If he ever has the opportunity to write a book on the success of TVXQ, he’s for sure going to mention both the wonders of telepathy and the downsides, because the perks might be amazing, but the more than teasing look on Changmin’s face as the younger man finally reaches up to brush his hair into its proper part is for sure not a perk.

Somewhere around the nine-year mark he and Changmin started realize that while they might not have been a duo for more than two years, the fact that they’d been living and breathing together for nine years really did mean all they had to do was look at each other to get across ‘if your feet aren’t off the dashboard in two seconds I’m quitting the band’ or ‘if you so much as ask me not to make you dance the entire thing again I will find a way to fire you.’ And then when kissing ended up on the table: ‘it’s your turn to get rid of Manager-hyungdeul’ and ‘I know but if they’re not gone in five seconds my clothes are coming off regardless.’

‘Your hair is in your mouth and it’s making me want to lick you’ is, by their standards, rather tame.

Changmin moves side to side so that his lower horse half swings behind him. His mouth opens like he wants to make a really crass joke.

“I will kill you,” Yunho tells him.

Changmin cackles and continues on his way around backstage so that he can be divested from the horse costume in time for ‘We Are’.

Yunho’s already out of his Santa costume, but the facepaint is still on, and Yunho would bet a limb that Changmin keeps glancing to the side because of the heart on his cheek.

“That’s not a very nice thing to say to the person who’s willing to put their life on hold early for you,” Changmin says.

Yunho wants to stumble but settles for standing tall and dignified as Changmin is transformed from a centaur into just Choikang Changmin. A staff member hurries up to him and swipes at his cheek until it’s clear of the paint.

“Ow,” Yunho says, mostly reflexively.

“That is my hand, Changmin,” someone else says, and Yunho look over to see Changmin is holding hands with Hosik-hyung as the staff fuss about with the horse. It seems pointless; Yunho thought the thing was just strapped around his waist, as it had been when he and Kyuhyun were playing around with them backstage.

Regardless, he feels his cheeks warm. The makeup-noona finishes with his cheek, giving him one last swipe with a happy smile.

Yunho can’t hear her over the screaming of their fans, but he gets the sentiment anyway. “We are adorable,” he says.

Makeup-noona doesn’t dispute this beyond a roll of her eyes, but even that is fond.

Yunho repeats the words back to himself, glad. He and Changmin are adorable, and due to be back on stage at the concert of their careers. Ten years is like a monument, and the entire thing feels incredibly surreal. Since debut they’ve been to more countries than Yunho had thought possible, performed so many times that sometimes he feels like he was born to be there, and throughout it all stayed together and true to who they were ten years ago.

The dancers and staff had been very hush hush about it, but Yunho knows that they have a cake set up for them, and that they’ve purposefully decided not to film the concert today to let them fully enjoy the full experience.

Ten. Fucking. Years.

Yunho can hardly believe.

Their staff touch him on the back and gesture him towards the lip of backstage so that they can walk him up and into the cart, and a manager arrives at his side holding the red Santa sack containing gifts for him to pelt out at their fans.

He glances over at Changmin, who’s entering from the opposite side as usual.

Changmin meets his eyes, grins, and then sticks his thumb straight up in the air.

Yunho’s heart thumps in his chest, his throat feels a little clogged, and he turns straight ahead so that he can give the fans the best performance of his ten-year career.

Changmin doesn’t even wait for it to be 2014 before he’s calling and booking a physical with their doctor to ensure he’s fit as a fiddle and capable of early enlistment; Yunho doesn’t even wait for the audience to be all the way out of the venue before he’s shoving the man up against the nearest wall and kissing him.

Kyungjae-hyung and Jooyoung-hyung heave long, drawn out sighs, and pointedly inform the camera crew there will be no usable backstage footage of the two of them at all.

That’s a lie. Yunho and Changmin are professionals, and their company juniors opened the show for them with a dance cover, so eventually they’re pulled off each other and sent around to say hello and give advice.

But for now, high off their tenth anniversary, having love-shot a beer with Changmin’s arm interlocked with his own, and narrowly avoided getting caked in the face by their cackling Dancer-hyungs, Yunho just presses Changmin into the wall and kisses him until they’re both breathless.

\--

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love you all! Comments, kudos, and retweets are the way to my heart and make me update and write faster!
> 
> [Tumblr masterpost](http://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/175137350265/right-now-you-and-i-are-clumsy-but-youre) || [Twitter masterpost](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1010128523477045248)


	6. swell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Hexmen and Kinah. All other mistakes are my own.

**6\. Swell**

\--

It’s Heechul-hyung’s fault. Yunho spent the day after New Years in and out the Hermes store in Gangnam buying what was totally not a matching bracelet set that he totally didn’t immediately stuff into the suitcase he’d been planning on using once they started having to go back and forth to and from Japan. He’d signed an autograph, probably been photographed, and bypassed Changmin’s curious head tilts and not questions about the entire thing by asking him how his physical had gone and if he’d finally gotten Park Jinyoung-sunbaenim to say his own name yet. (He hadn’t, which Yunho knew, because Changmin had been complaining about it since he’d finished filming on the 1st.)

Then Heechul-hyung had said it in passing--“so you bought him a bracelet. That’s cute. Does it even fit him?”--and Yunho’s entire world had gone up in flames.

“What?” Yunho says. His throat feels like it’s dropped a full meter underground. “Is that a thing?”

Heechul-hyung lowers his soju glass and squints at Yunho. “Yurobbong,” he says. “Does everyone in the world have the same wrist size?”

At his side, Donghae fucking nods furtively while simultaneously mouthing the words, ‘ _I wouldn’t have known either_.’

“That’s not fucking comforting--you have an actual clause in your contract telling you not to talk about the album until preapproved times.”

Heechul-hyung turns to look at Donghae, unimpressed, and Donghae sputters.

“I do not!” their youngest says. “I do not--that’s a _lie_ \--I haven’t spoiled anything in years!”

“You did almost break up the band when I was away,” Heechul-hyung says. “By throwing water on Jungsoo--”

“That was Kyu’s fault!” Donghae exclaims. “That was absolutely Kyu’s fault--”

“Also, you totally ruined my jacket,” Yunho puts in, taking his own sip of soju to hide his smirk.

Heechul-hyung shifts in his seat, pleased.

“That was Hyung’s fault.” Donghae actually sounds hurt. “You know that was Hyung’s fault.”

Yunho drops the act and his glass. “No, I know,” he says. “Donghae--”

Donghae is frowning at the both of them. “You’re mean,” he says. “I need better friends.”

Yunho opens his mouth.

Donghae reaches out to shove a hand into his face. “Don’t say anything,” he says.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. All of our advice has been sound and solid. It’s Boa who’s steered you wrong.” Heechul-hyung takes another sip to finish off their round, and officially deems them done for the night by sliding the bottle and glasses to the other end of the table.

Yunho blinks.

Donghae nods at Heechul-hyung’s side. “Boa-noona gave you terrible advice.”

Yunho stares between the two of them with his lips parted and wants to laugh. “How the fuck did I end up the one getting interrogated again?” he says, doing so.

“Language, Yurobbong,” Heechul-hyung says.

“Oooh, do we drink for that?” Donghae adds. “I think we drink for that--”

“Music programs,” Yunho interjects, protesting. “Also I swear all the time what the fuck are you on about--”

“You really only swear in bed, to be honest,” says Changmin, wandering out of the master bed and bath with his hair damp from a shower in a pair of Yunho’s sweats and a t-shirt. “Or when you’re angry.”

“I am angry!” Yunho says. He pauses for like five seconds, but he thinks he’s justified in doing that, because at least ten droplets of water are working their way down the line of Changmin’s throat and underneath the very gaping collar of Yunho’s own t-shirt.

Heechul-hyung’s mouth has fallen open. “Were you here this entire time?” he says.

Changmin shoots him his patent unimpressed look. “It’s easier if we stay in one place for music programs,” he says, like he’s reciting the laws of physics to a two-year-old.

Donghae snickers. “I’m sure other things are easier too,” he says.

Yunho reaches across the table to punch him.

Donghae falls back against Yunho’s new couch and frowns. “Ow,” he says. “Hey. Isn’t this our couch?”

Yunho shoots Changmin a knowing, pleased look. “I don’t know, Donghae,” he says. “Is it, Changminnie?”

“Shut up,” Changmin says. His ears are blushing, now, and he’s lost any and all of the dignity he’d had before.

Heechul-hyung is still staring between Changmin and Yunho’s bedroom like he can’t believe he missed the fact the water was running and Changmin’s shoes were very neatly placed beside the front door.

Yunho smirks down at his coffee table and goes to stand.

“Yeah, don’t do that,” Changmin says, speeding up immediately on his way towards the kitchen. “Why don’t you keep water by your bedside--what kind of idol are you?”

“A dehydrated one,” Yunho says, at the same time Heechul-hyung manages to locate his sense of humor.

“One who doesn’t need to remember anything because he married Shim Nag Changmin,” the older man says.

Donghae snorts and high fives him.

“Throw them out,” Changmin says mildly. “I’m bored, and you need to entertain me.”

Yunho blinks. “You could come sit with us instead of hiding,” he says. “We have soju.”

Changmin looks up from Yunho’s refrigerator and cranes his very long neck to stare at them gathered over by the couch and windows. “Cheap soju,” he says.

Heechul-hyung protests. “I bought this!”

Changmin is unbothered.

Heechul-hyung turns to point accusingly at Yunho. “Your maknae--”

“Is also the love of my life,” Yunho finishes pleasantly, and steeples his hands on his coffee table. “Are you sure you want to continue that sentence?”

Heechul-hyung’s mouth has fallen open.

Donghae is glancing between the two of them like he’s watching Changmin’s final basketball match. “Happy New Year,” he tries, lifting a nonexistent glass. “Happy, uh…”

“Music Bank, tomorrow,” Yunho says. He darts a glance down at his phone and taps the screen. “Ugh. Today.”

Heechul-hyung follows his gaze. “They’re calling you that early?”

“It’s our first stage,” Yunho says, which isn’t, ‘well, actually, it’s Music Bank so we don’t have to be there until just before noon,’ but he thinks will work to appease Heechul-hyung.

Changmin snickers over by the fridge, bowed over his phone, but clearly listening with half an ear.

Yunho wants to flush, but settles for smiling beatifically at Heechul-hyung and Donghae. “It’s kind of a big deal.”

“Mhmm.” Heechul-hyung looks like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, but not like he doesn’t believe Yunho. “What were we even talking about, anyway?”

“Changminnie’s wrists,” Donghae says helpfully, and Yunho and Heechul-hyung simultaneously reach for him with protests on their lips.

Heechul-hyung is far more successful because he’s on the same side of the table, but regardless Donghae ends up getting elbowed and shoved aggressively, and Changmin, who probably hadn’t even noticed they’d been talking about him given he’d turned back to his phone, finally looks up.

Yunho tries to retreat across the table without ending up with most of his hand in Donghae’s mouth; Heechul-hyung rather aggressively licks a stripe along Donghae’s face; Donghae starts swearing at the both of them.

“What are you three even _doing_?” Changmin says. He sounds very, very Seoul.

Yunho meets Donghae and Heechul-hyung’s eyes.

“Never mind,” Changmin tries to cut in, crossing back through Yunho’s living room towards the master bedroom with his water glass in one hand and his phone stowed away in his sweat pockets. “Never mind--you’re annoying--”

“But Changdol,” Yunho says, over the crowing of his friends’ overdone and played up satoori. “I thought you liked my accent?” It’s possible Yunho might be playing up his own accent. It’s possible that Changmin’s frozen in the middle of the doorway with goosebumps covering the ridges of his spine, visible under the line of his shirt collar.

Heechul-hyung and Donghae stop bastardizing their hometown dialects and start fake-choking on air.

“Gross--”

“You get all Gwangju whenever you’re angry, _thanks_ , Hyung. Now I’m going to be thinking about that _every time_ \--”

Changmin stays in the hallway for half a breath more, before continuing on his route back to Yunho’s bedroom.

Yunho swallows, throat suddenly dry. On the table, his phone buzzes.

 _I do_ , the message reads. _So kick them out, and come remind me why_.

Yunho licks his lips.

“Right, bye,” Heechul-hyung says, standing, and practically manhandles Donghae after him. “Didn’t you say you wanted to get an IV drip anyway?”

“Hyung--it’s cold--”

“Cold is preferable to listening to Yurobbong suck face with Changmin--”

Yunho would throw something at them, but that might keep them from leaving fast enough.

“Good point--bye, hyung,” Donghae calls over his shoulder, and then they’re both out the door.

Yunho sits on his floor for all of ten seconds, breathing.

Changmin’s naked and spread out across his bed like a feast when he gets to the bedroom, one hand wrapped around his dick, and a smirk flicking the corners of his lips up. His hair is still damp and faintly curling behind his ears and across his forehead.

Yunho hates him, really.

“I didn’t realize eleven-thirty was early, Yunho-hyung,” he starts to say, and Yunho growls at him, before stalking across the floor so that he can kneel over him and get his mouth on him, straight down to the knot without nearly enough warning for the both of them.

Changmin yelps, hips thrusting up and both hands trying to rip hair out of Yunho’s head.

Yunho might gag a little, but it’s worth it, honestly, for the pink striping across Changmin’s cheeks, and the broken, messy noises that fall from behind his perfect lips.

“Oh--” Changmin says.

“Eleven-thirty is early,” Yunho says, pulling off the man’s cock with a pleased hum. His voice is already a little raspier.

“Hyung.” Changmin can’t seem to look away from the tip of his dick or the part of Yunho’s lips. “You have to sing tomorrow. For _comeback_.”

Yunho frowns. “Why do you have to ruin my plans, Changdol,” he complains. He darts his tongue out to wet his lips.

“Fuck.” Yunho can’t believe Changmin is already all the way to swearing. “Fuck, okay. What if I just. Was very, very good?”

Yunho’s tummy flip flops. “I think you’re insulting me,” he says lowly. “When have you ever managed to be good when I put my mouth on you--”

“Like you’re any better,” Changmin mutters, and then curses some more when Yunho leaks in response. “Oh, fuck you, that’s unfair--”

“Sorry.” Yunho isn’t very sorry, and he doesn’t sound it. “It’s just instinct, Changdol, I can’t help it--”

“I will _help you_ \--” Changmin bites out nonsensically and puts his hands back on Yunho’s head. “Look, hold me down--”

“But you’re an alpha.” Yunho’s practically salivating for it. “What’s holding you down going to do since there’s absolutely--” He leans down to press the faintest of kisses to the head of Changmin’s cock, and his other half moans, voice high and whiny already. His hips can’t seem to stop twitching. “--no way,” Yunho continues, “--in the world--” He settles mores solidly onto the bed and palms both of Changmin’s hip bones, thumbing over the tops of them and pressing the moon of a nail into the flesh there to hear Changmin start to sing. “--that I’ll be able to reach your knot with my mouth--”

Changmin’s hands grasp mindlessly at Yunho’s neck and shoulders; Yunho hadn’t noticed he’d moved them down out of his hair, but he makes a noise of displeasure once he’s realized that fact.

“Doesn’t matter--it’s fine--just please--” Changmin’s got his eyes shut like not seeing Yunho’s face so close to his dick is somehow going to help.

Yunho takes advantage of that to smirk freely. “But aren’t you always yelling at me if you don’t get a full orgasm?”

Changmin’s eyes squint open and Yunho doesn’t school his features fast enough. “What if I just locked myself in the guest room--”

“Fine, if you insist,” Yunho says, and tightens his grip on Changmin’s hips just seconds before he’s leaning to take most of Changmin’s cock into his mouth.

Changmin shrieks, bucks, and then seems to come back to himself with some frankly impressive self-control.

Yunho pauses with his mouth stuffed full of cock to try to speak--“please, Changdol, we have a recording tomorrow,”--because the vibrations always make Changmin lose it. However clearly Changmin is hearing absolutely nothing, because all the man is doing is biting his lip so hard it looks like it’ll draw blood and clenching the sheets so hard Yunho worries he’ll need to purchase more. Luckily he’s got fresh ones neatly put away in the closet; bonus to having Changmin live with him during promotion.

“Yunho-hyung.” Changmin sounds distraught. “What are you doing--”

“I really can’t reach and I really can’t hold you down with one hand,” Yunho blurts, pulled all the way off of Changmin’s dick with a frown. “Really, Changdol, are blow jobs that good--”

Changmin snarls, hands unlocking from the bed and reaching for Yunho. “You fucker--”

“Oh, Changdol, wait,” Yunho protests, giggling.

“You _fucker_ ,” Changmin repeats, hauling at the ladder of Yunho’s ribcage and flattening the other man on top of him so that their hips line up. “You _tease_ \--”

“You love it--” Yunho tries to say, before Changmin kisses him, and they don’t do any more talking.

\--

The second guest on _Hello Counselor_ is a lovely omega woman whose alpha husband keeps insisting on children, and Yunho spends the entire segment trying not to seem like he’s shifting too awkwardly on his cushion.

He can practically smell Changmin’s amusement to his left at the start of the story, but as the concern continues, his bandmate cycles from plain bemusement to concern, to mild horror. The production staff keep making a fuss in the corner and Yunho can see their managers muttering to themselves, but they broke before they started this segment, and Yunho and Changmin had read the script, so they can’t rush on stage for a quick heavy-duty dousing of scent neutralizers.

“Hyung,” Changmin mutters, when the cameras aren’t on the two of them, and Dongyup-hyung is making hilarious comments to keep the audience’s attention. “Calm down.”

Yunho wants to say more, but Yunho would like to keep his job, so instead he smiles and shifts as directed when Youngja-noona asks for someone to play the husband.

Changmin spikes back to amused, and Lee Yubi is looking over at him with an odd expression on her face.

Yunho just pastes his smile to his face and somehow manages to get through his limited lines. Then he ducks his entire face and shouts about it, because that’s something a man would do. The PD seems pleased, and Yunho has a brief respite to regroup and get himself together before they bring the woman in question in.

“They’ve been married for six years,” Youngja-noona determines. “And they have five children--”

Dongyup-hyung and the rest of the audience rapidly realize that this means a pregnancy every year. “Wow,” he says.

“That’s a baby every year,” Chanwoo-hyung says.

Youngja-noona continues talking over the both of them, listing off the various aches and pains this woman has suffered in light of this.

Yunho frowns. He’d being working from the assumption that the couple in question were your traditional alpha omega pair, but maybe that’s not the case. Or maybe all that information about how you couldn’t get pregnant while nursing--that heats were suppressed while you were nursing--was just old wives tales.

“Is she an omega?” Dongyup-hyung says, clearly on the same page as Yunho.

Yunho shoots a quick look over at Changmin like he can’t help himself, but Changmin is perfectly poised.

“Actually, that’s a lie,” Youngja-noona says, in response to the unasked question.

“She is, then,” Chanwoo-hyung mutters, but Taehyun-hyung snorts at him and Youngja-noon ignores him.

“I knew a woman who got pregnant with twins while nursing her first child,” she says, turned towards Yunho, Changmin, and Lee Yubi-ssi like a perfect host. “She hadn’t had a heat _at all_ \--”

She breaks off, smiling pleasantly when the PD interjects with a quickly waved hand.

“Sorry everyone,” Youngja-noona says, still smiling pleasantly around at everyone. “We need to do that again--”

“Ratings,” the Cultwo-hyungs chorus pleasantly, relaxing infinitesimally once the cameras stop running.

“Hey, Changmin-ah--” Taehyun-hyung is grinning.

Changmin turns towards the source like a dog with perked ears. “Yes?”

The fans coo.

Yunho hides a smile behind his hand.

“That woman’s husband must have been facing east--”

Changmin’s cheeks blush, Youngja-noona shakes her head, and even the PD-hyung looks amused.

“East?” Yunho says as the staff rush past to put everything back into place for the second take.

“Shut up,” Changmin replies with his own fake smile. “Shut up--”

Yunho palms his mouth some more so he can full out grin.

Changmin glowers at him.

“Alright!” someone shouts, running in a clapper board.

This time Youngja-noona redirects the discussion of the ins and outs of omega pregnancy with albomb and professionalism and absolutely no mention of heat.

Yunho listens to her and still feels a little like the cushion’s been pulled out from underneath him. He also has a sinking feeling that next time he and Changmin get on the subject of the twenty-five children they’re absolutely not having Changmin might have more fodder for the practicality of such a thing in the first place.

“Let’s meet her!” Youngja-noona announces, before Yunho can mull it over more.

The audience cheers, and the PD signals the woman to come out to the stage.

Yunho finally manages to tear his gaze away from Changmin, thankful for editing and the fact that everyone is much more interested in meeting this forever pregnant woman.

Changmin elbows Yunho in the side as they all finish applauding. “Stop frowning,” he says out the side of his mouth.

Yunho smiles like they’re live on broadcast.

Jung Jaesoon-ssi can’t slide down the slide to meet them, and she’s so heavily pregnant that Yunho finds himself up and helping her before he can think it through. She’s definitely an omega--that much is clear from the moment he steps in close to her, and he almost wants to cough in response. Yunho’s been around pregnant people before, of course, but he’s not sure he’ll ever get used to the mix of jealousy, paternal-concern, and awe that they always inspire in him.

“Thank you,” she says politely when Yunho takes her hand.

Yunho smiles back at her and helps her up the final steps to the pillows. Her children shout for her, and it’s hard for Yunho not to smile. They’re adorable. All four of them, and even though he’s horrified on her behalf, when he looks at them, Yunho’s chest aches.

Changmin shoves a foot into his thigh when he sits down in a move so practiced absolutely nobody in the audience notices, and Yunho winces behind his smile and settles his plush toy more strategically across his legs.

Then one of Jaesoon-ssi’s children calls Youngja-noona ‘fat’ and the mood of the broadcast switches rather abruptly. Reaction shots have to be taken, Changmin gets out a few barbed and variety worthy comments, and eventually the children are ushered off stage by long suffering production staff so that they can continue the broadcast.

Yunho is silent for most of the elaboration, Changmin keeps making increasingly more expressive faces, and Yubi just smiles and presses the button to indicate that she considers this very much a concern.

Yunho would agree.

“I think that power should be sealed now,” Changmin says, as he’s seated next to her.

The audience loves it.

Yunho smiles at the reaction and tries to get his thoughts in order.

He ends up cobbling something together that he thinks sounds decent about how Jaesoon-ssi’s husband has all the right intentions but is in fact being too greedy while rubbing at his neck and pointedly ignoring the snickering Changmin is doing under his breath.

Then Jaesoon-ssi gets her win and Jaesoon-ssi’s husband gets roped into a broadcast endorsed and approved vasectomy.

“Jaesoon-ssi will go to the winners seat, and I’ll take her husband to the doctors,” Youngja-noona says, to a chorus of laughter from the gallery.

“Cut,” someone shouts for the benefit of everyone else.

“No, really,” Youngja-noona says seriously, turned to Jaesoon-ssi. “I’ll take him--he promised on _television_.”

Yunho nods from beside her, having stood up automatically to help Jaesoon-ssi to the aforementioned winners seat.

“I can’t believe I won,” Jaesoon-ssi says to Youngja-noona as they start walking.

The older woman snorts. “I can’t believe you had five children.”

Jaesoon-ssi smiles, more than a little self deprecating.

Yunho follows after the both of them with a hand extended in case Jaesoon-ssi falls, and hurries closer to help the woman sit down in the chair. It’s wooden. Yunho frowns. “Let me get you a pillow,” he decides, and heads back over to the ones he’d left in his seat.

Changmin looks up when he comes back, still sitting cross legged on the floor in his mustard yellow sweater, socked feet tucked neatly underneath himself. His head cocks to one side.

“I’m getting Jaesoon-ssi a pillow,” Yunho explains, feeling a little embarrassed.  

Changmin snorts. “I’m pretty sure they’ll have some for her.”

Yunho ignores him, but flushes.

A production assistant has run Jaesoon-ssi a pillow by the time Yunho gets back carrying his own, but the woman smiles at him anyway. “Thank you, Yunho-ssi,” she says softly. Her voice is very pretty, but Yunho still can’t figure out if that’s just because it’s pretty, or because she’s pregnant.

“You’re welcome,” Yunho says. It’s so cold outside they came to KBS in sweaters and scarves with their sleeves pulled down, but he feels like he ought to be popping suppressants.

Jaesoon-ssi has stopped smiling at him and has instead turned her attention to the rest of the set, looking brightly towards the camera pointed towards her.

Yunho swallows, worries the pillow he’s holding, and pulls his microphone off. “Was it really that hard?” he says. “Being pregnant, I mean.”

Jaesoon-ssi pauses. “Um,” she says, almost like she can’t believe him.

Yunho can’t believe himself either. He glances helplessly over towards Changmin, but the other man is too far away to help Yunho free of the grave he just dug himself. He’s turned towards Lee Yubi listening to whatever it is the woman is saying, but he’s also got a look to him that tells Yunho that he’s looking over at the two of them somehow without showing it. He turns back to Jaesoon-ssi.

“I mean,” he says. He doesn’t know what to say without making things worse.

Jaesoon-ssi is looking at Yunho like she’s not really surprised, but also half like she’s disappointed, and Yunho’s skin itches.

“No, I don’t mean--” he starts to correct again, but there really isn’t a way to apologize or explain without saying things he really ought not to be saying. Especially in the middle of a variety set and so close to the audience. At least they’re at the edge of the set and Jaesoon-ssi will only be visible in the wide shots or from the camera to her right, but Yunho still shifts his weight side to side and wishes he was short enough that he’d need to step up on the steps. He’s still holding the cushion in front of himself.

Jaesoon-ssi is still smiling woodenly at him.

Yunho decides to just let it go. “Never mind,” he starts to say, at the same time Changmin laughs at something Lee Yubi says and throws his entire head back. The moves puts his neck on display and makes his shoulders shake. Yunho finds himself turned all the way around to watch him like a magnet, heart doing terrible things, even after ten damn years.

There’s a smile curling around his mouth, but Yunho doesn’t even care. None of the cameras are rolling, and Changmin and Lee Yubi are far more interesting to look at than Yunho standing in the corner of the set beside nobody famous at all.

When he looks back to apologize again, Jaesoon-ssi is looking at him with her mouth slightly open. “Oh,” Jaesoon-ssi says.

Yunho blinks down at her, confused. “Jaesoon-ssi?”

“Yes,” the woman says, emphatic now without any of her earlier reservations. “I wasn’t exaggerating in my complaint.”

“No, I didn’t think you were,” Yunho hurries to say, smiling at her pleasantly.

The PDs seems finished with their rush around checking mics and camera positions and sweeping the set free of imaginary lint and dust, and Yunho shifts on his feet again. “I should go--”

Jaesoon-ssi is still smiling at him like they’re sharing a secret. “The first one was lovely,” she says, which does nothing to help the sea of bees buzzing in Yunho’s stomach.

“Oh,” he’s the one saying now, more to himself than anything.

“Yunho-ssi.” A staff member shows up at his side, hands wrung between them. “The cushion.”

Yunho hands it over so that it can be run back onto set and placed perfectly within continuity for when they start the final complaint.

“And your microphone.”

Yunho reaches out to let them refeed it through his sweater and clip it properly. He shoots Jaesoon-ssi one last smile, before heading back over to his place beside Changmin.

The other man shifts back when Yunho sits, but his expression holds.

Yunho glances at him and does his best to convey ‘we’ll talk later’ with just his eyes.

\--

“So, twenty-five children,” says Changmin, in the car heading home from filming.

Yunho keeps typing into his phone and doesn’t respond to him, but his ears start blushing from his place in the front of the car. He called shotgun with the foresight of knowing if he was within eyeline of Changmin, his entire face was going to get set on fire.

Not that the lack of eye contact is helping him much, but Yunho likes to think he’s much more composed because of it.

“Did you know you that you could get pregnant when nursing?” Changmin continues, gleefully. “Or were you just that arrogantly presumptuous that you thought we’d somehow be able to be healthy enough to make babies--”

“Healthy enough to make babies,” Hosik-hyung mutters. “They don’t pay me enough for this.”

“--for twenty-five years.” Changmin makes a face. “Hyung. Even if we’d started the moment I met you--”

Yunho makes a punched out whining noise when he thinks about going-through puberty Changmin putting his dick anywhere--

“--there’s no way we could have twenty-five children--”

“I thought _Hello Counselor_ was fun, Changminnie,” Yunho interrupts quickly. “What did you think, Hosik-hyung?”

Hosik-hyung doesn’t look away from the road. He also doesn’t respond. When Yunho looks at him pointedly, he darts a quick glance at them both. “Wait that wasn’t rhetorical?” the man asks. “I’m sorry, I just thought I was furniture--”

“Never mind,” Yunho interrupts. “Lee Yubi-ssi was very pretty.”

Changmin snorts at the subject change. “Your arms and legs already ache after every dance practice,” he says. “Imagine how you’d feel after six pregnancies--”

“You don’t even want children,” Yunho blurts. “And also, you’re the one complaining about your aching bones--”

“I moonlight as a basketball player,” Changmin says. “Speaking of, are you coming to my final game?”

Yunho hadn’t wanted to say the children thing, but now that he has, he’d kind of been hoping Changmin would respond.

Changmin hasn’t, and when Yunho turns to look at him more than just in the rearview mirror, the other man doesn’t even do him the honor of looking back. Instead, he stares down at his phone, fingers swiping across the touchscreen in conversation with probably Kyuhyun.

Yunho doesn’t know what he expected. “Yes,” he answers finally. “Yeah--I told Hyung to cancel everything else.”

That doesn’t get him a glance either. “You don’t have any schedules for the fifteenth,” he says. “You never did.”

“No, actually I did,” Yunho argues. “I canceled the moment I heard you cried--”

“The moment you heard Jinyoung-sunbaenim said the thing to me, more like,” Changmin interjects mutters.

“Because you never cry around me, and I’d hate to miss the opportunity,” Yunho finishes angrily, crossing his arms. He puts his feet up on the dashboard to complete the image.

Changmin’s fingers still.

Yunho feels a thrill go down his spine.

“No.” Changmin’s voice is very, very careful. “I think that’s you, actually,” he says. “And I cry for you all the time.”

Hosik-hyung clears his throat pointedly.

Yunho tries to chase his thoughts out of the gutter like he’s trying to escape from a horror movie. “Yeah, well,” he says.

“And I do want children,” Changmin adds suddenly, returning to their earlier conversation with absolutely no segue. He’s still staring down at his phone like he’s busy on it, but when Yunho turns more fully to gape at him, he’s so still he can’t be. The screen goes dark on his watch, but he doesn’t so much as click a button.

Yunho swallows. “Oh.”

Changmin swallows also. “Yeah.”

Yunho clears his throat and pulls his own phone to have something to do with his hands. “But not now, though,” he says, at the same time as Changmin.

“Not until after military, of course--”

They both break off at the same time and busy themselves with their phones. There’s a blush creeping up the back of Yunho’s neck and his heart is thudding in his ears. Probably Hosik-hyung can hear it, can tell from the pheromone spike how happy Yunho is about this, but he can’t manage to tamp down on his feelings enough for his body to stop broadcasting every emotion so fully. He has to work hard enough to keep his reactions familial and coworker-y whenever he and Changmin are in public; in the van, Yunho just wants to exist. If occasionally he shouts from the rooftops that Changmin’s the love of his life, so be it.

“You two are sickening,” Hosik-hyung says.

“Yeah, well,” Yunho says.

“You’re just jealous,” Changmin agrees.

They exchange a quick grin in the rearview mirror.

Hosik-hyung rolls his eyes. “Your place or his place?”

Yunho darts another look to Changmin. “My place,” he says. “Larger.”

“Better kitchen,” Changmin says happily, before turning more fully back to his phone.

Yunho smiles as well, and nods.

\--

After their first win, high off life, Yunho follows Changmin around a corner in the bowels of the CJ E&M center building trying not to skip. They pass hoobae after hoobae, all bowing, but Changmin’s too busy clutching their award, and Yunho is too busy trying not to grin so wide his face splits. They’ve finally done it, and his heart is so light he feels like he could just fly away.

So of course the first thing he does when he spots an empty looking hallway and a door is pull the thing open, grab Changmin by the hand, and haul him inside.

From outside, the manager following them sighs. Their dancers shift their feet.

“Is someone going to remember which hallway we lost them in?” Yunho hears Juhee say.

“Take a picture,” Hyoje replies. “Oh wait. The hallways all look the same--”

“They haven’t had lunch yet,” Jooyoung-hyung decides finally, sounding like he’s started herding their staff back towards their dressing rooms. “Changmin may love Yunho to pieces, but there’s no way he’ll sacrifice lunch in favor of di--”

“Okay,” one of their newer managers interjects, voice high. “We are still in public--”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jooyoung-hyung says, voice farther away now as they’ve all definitely moved along several meters. He sounds apologetic, however.

Yunho listens to them leave with his breath held, then turns to more fully face Changmin.

“Are you nineteen?” Changmin says, before Yunho can so much as squint towards him.

Their trophy is smooshed between the two of them like an uncomfortable medallion, Yunho’s practically part of the door he closed behind them, and when his eyes finally adjust to the darkness, he realizes that Changmin’s currently using a broom as a pillow.

“Oh,” Yunho says. “This is a broom closet.”

Changmin’s left eye starts twitching. “Yes, Hyung,” he says. “Now can we get _out_ of it?”

Yunho kisses him, because that had been the point of shoving him into this supposed broom closet in the first place. He means it to be a quick, shutting up sort of kiss, but Changmin’s mouth parts oh so sweetly and his eyelashes flutter oh so immediately and Yunho gets more than a little lost in him. One of his hands ends up cradling Changmin’s shoulder, the other ends up gripping the base of their award, and Changmin makes a low, pleased hum and licks deep into Yunho’s mouth.

By the time Yunho remember he’d wanted to pull back and to say something, his cock is more than interested and other parts of him are very ready to start making themselves uncomfortably known. The garters around both of Yunho’s thighs very suddenly start to feel both restrictive and dangerous.

He knows Changmin has on his own pair, wrapped around the meat of both his thighs to keep his shirt tucked and proper for their more than extenuating dance moves, and the thought of them is making the already cramped space hot and bothered.

Yunho swallows.

Changmin tilts his head back and stares down at Yunho through half lidded eyes. “You’re thinking something terrible,” he determines.

“You should take off just your pants,” Yunho agrees, without a mouth to brain filter.

Changmin inhales.

Yunho steps even closer even though the glass of their award is really digging into his sternum. From Changmin’s wince, it’s not unaffecting him either. Yunho is a little too distracted by trying to keep kissing him, however.

“Just my pants,” Changmin repeats.

“Mmm.” Yunho chases the other man’s mouth, then whines when Changmin doesn’t let him catch him in a kiss. “You can leave on the boxers and the garters.”

Changmin’s nostrils flare again. “Ah,” he says. The hand not holding their award has somehow found its way to the line of Yunho’s back pockets, fingers tracing circles along the strip of elastic dropping down to hold his shirt down. Just when Yunho starts get into it, Changmin draws his hand up to tuck behind Yunho’s suspenders instead, palm warm against the small of Yunho’s back.

There really is not enough space in the broom closet to accommodate them. Also, they probably needed to be in plain clothes and ready to leave ten minutes ago.

Yunho finds he doesn’t care. “Did you mean it?” he says instead.

Changmin blinks at him.

Yunho would blink at himself too, if he could, because what in the hell is he even saying. “About… children,” his mouth forces out finally, and oh shit. That wasn’t where Yunho wanted things to go.

Changmin falls further back into the brooms with a furrowed brow. “Are we sure spring hasn’t come early?” he says.

“It snowed,” Yunho says. “It’s January and it’s snowing--”

“Right… and you’re baby crazy,” Changmin says.

“Is this news?” Yunho hurries to say. “Fuck. We should get out of this closet--” He starts to try to do that, only Changmin’s hand tightens on his lower back and somehow he manages to flip them around in the limited amount of space so that Yunho’s the one pressed head to back of the knee up against all sorts of cleaning supplies and the award they just won is shoved directly into the divot of his jugular.

They pause.

Yunho tries to breath through his nose. “Changmin-ah,” he says. “I need to breathe.”

Changmin pulls the hand holding onto their award with a frown. “Whose idea was this?” he asks somewhat rhetorically.

Yunho takes advantage of that to not answer the question. “Thanks,” he says instead, since Changmin’s no longer choking him with glass. “Where are we going to put that?”

“Yeah, your place,” Changmin says. “Your office is at least twice the size of mine--”

“Not really,” Yunho says, thinking of the last time he’d been acquainted with Changmin’s office: getting fucked up against Changmin glass bedroom doors, to the extreme pleasure of all involved, because Changmin was an asshole who couldn’t let anything go, and once upon a time Yunho had said he wanted an impossible number of children.

It wasn’t even heat sex. No, Changmin pinned Yunho to his own hard glass windows and rambled on directly into Yunho’s ear about how they would have to get started _immediately_ if they were ever going to manage anywhere close to double digits on the reproduction front, and Yunho went crossed-eyed and came more than he thought possible outside of heat. It was probably revenge for every time Yunho decided to talk about children while sitting on Changmin’s dick. It was probably punishment.

It was probably going to have the opposite effect--

“Yunho-hyung.” Changmin’s tone is infinitely unimpressed. “What are you thinking about?’

Yunho turns his attention back around to stare at Changmin’s nose, then at his cheeks, then between his eyes, and finally into his beautiful, expressive eyes.

Changmin’s nostrils flare and his lips part involuntarily. “Oh,” he says, tone forcing volumes into that one syllable. “Oh, okay--” Clearly he hasn’t forgotten the office thing either, because his eyes are going sharp and his hands are slowly sliding their way down the expanse of Yunho’s biceps in search of bare skin.

Yunho wants to yelp and escape but has nowhere to go but brooms, so he settles for scrabbling a little helplessly for purchase against Changmin, tripping on what appears to just be his own two feet and falling backwards into the brooms now clutching onto Changmin like a lifeline.

Changmin holds them both steady with gently shaking arms and takes advantage of their sudden closeness to breathe directly up against Yunho’s neck.

“Unfair,” Yunho gets out, voice high and without much power. “You’re unfair--”

“I love you also,” Changmin replies pleasantly, still breathing up against Yunho’s neck. “How long do you think we can stay in here?”

Yunho thinks about that. “Jooyoung-hyung will kill us,” he decides.

Changmin sighs, and then lets go of Yunho’s arms so that he can run fingers through his own hair.

Yunho blinks down at him, noticing for the first time that their M Countdown trophy is being supported by the shelf of his own chest. His throat goes a little dry in response.

“Did you mean it?” Yunho asks, distracted and lacking a filter.

Changmin blinks at him a few times. He lets go of his hair, which is sticking out in every direction even more now.

Yunho snorts, because if the intent behind them ending up in a broom closet wasn’t clear to their staff before, it very much would be once they emerged.

“Did I mean… what?” says Changmin. He has a look to him that suggests he knows.

“About children,” Yunho says.

Changmin tries to step away from him, but gives up because of their very limited space.

One of the brooms seems to fall sideways and ends up stabbing Yunho in the lower back. He winces.

“You’re still on about that?” says Changmin.

“You’re still on about that,” says Yunho, thinking of the frankly adorable baby clothes Changmin somehow convinced Minho to send Yunho photos of earlier that morning. “But I didn’t think you wanted--”

“I’ve always said I wanted children,” Changmin says, which doesn’t really do much to help Yunho’s situation.

“Yeah, well, we’re supposed to want children,” he mutters.

Changmin puts a hand underneath Yunho’s chin to make him look at him and then keeps it there. “We?”

“Men,” Yunho says. “Idols-- The ideal man, or whatever-- Our fans are supposed to be into it--”

“I don’t know, Yunho-hyung,” Changmin interrupts. “Are you into it? Do you like that I want to give you children?”

Yunho wishes there was space for him to turn around and pretend this isn’t happening. “No,” he lies.

Changmin makes a pleased humming noise and thumbs over both of Yunho’s cheeks. “Liar.”

Yunho lifts his head to glower at him. “You like it too,” he mutters. “You’re more jealous than I am--”

“All of your friends,” says Changmin, leaned in close so that he can kiss Yunho in place of periods. “Are alphas.”

Yunho leans in as well to kiss him back. “Son Hojoon.” It’s hard not to get lost in Changmin’s mouth. “Is a beta.”

Changmin nips him on the bottom lip. “He’d marry you regardless.”

Yunho pulls a face. “Gross, Changdol. He’s like family.”

Changmin lifts one eyebrow. “And what exactly am I?”

“Married family,” Yunho says pleasantly. He kisses Changmin--

“Are you two done, it’s late?” It’s Hosik-hyung, come to pound on the closet door and sounding put upon. “Let’s go home. We have Music Bank tomorrow.”

The door opens what feels like immediately following his announcement, and Changmin comes backwards out of the closet, still attached to Yunho by the mouth.

They have to pull apart to grab the trophy before it hits the ground, which shatters the moment.

Hosik-hyung stares down at his phone and sighs.

Yunho just smiles at Changmin like the world’s worst kept secret, before skipping down the hall in front of them.

“He’s going the wrong way,” he hears Hosik-hyung mutter, over the sound of what is definitely Changmin mock shoving him.

“Don’t tell him. Go get a camera. Somebody needs to film this so the fans can gif it--”

Yunho pivots seamlessly and comes striding by the two of them, hooking Changmin by one arm and dragging the younger man after him. “Changdol, even if the fans got footage of me going the wrong way once, that would not make up for the fact that you have done it at least _three times_ \--”

“Shut up--” Changmin says, flushing, but tightens his grip on Yunho’s arm before letting go anyway.

Yunho’s lips curve up into a smile.

\--

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, Kudos, and Retweets are the best! Please don't be afraid to comment--you'll make my day and I promise I don't bite! ~~I only write about consensual biting between Yunho and Changmin~~.
> 
> [Tumblr masterpost](http://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/175335361140/right-now-you-and-i-are-clumsy-but-youre) || [Twitter masterpost](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1012282275239784453)


	7. crest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is hottttttt where I live also I totally forgot about some unresolved comments so sorry for the mild delay but ENJOY THIS CHAPTER!
> 
> Betaed by Hexmen and Kinah. All other mistakes are my own.

**7\. Crest**

\--

Changmin hands Yunho a laptop and Yunho nearly sends the entire thing crashing to the floor once he realizes what’s open on the screen. They’re backstage for _Music Core_ , and granted most of their staff are distracted, but their dancers are literally standing alongside Yunho, and Changmin has left an internet browser open to what Yunho believes is a _sex toy_ Naver search. He slams it shut with what he can only describe as a healthy amount of horror and tries to act like he meant to do that and everything is fine.

Changmin just blinks up at him from his phone with wide, innocent eyes. “Are you okay, Hyung?”

Yunho swallows a few times and sets the computer down on the counter next to him. It’s Changmin’s personal laptop--Yunho received it to put it away when they were told they had twenty minutes to standby, right before their managers had conferred and told them they’d be playing some games for a behind the scenes video.

Nobody is going to be able to open the thing and log on and see firsthand proof how Shim Choikang Changmin is apparently frequenting sex toy shops, but Yunho’s palms still seem to be sweating.

“Fine,” he says.          

He’s not fine.

From the way Changmin hums and immediately turns back to his phone, the other man didn’t intend for Yunho to see, nor has he realized Yunho did in fact see.

What the heck even? Last night Changmin went out and got probably a little bit drunk with Kyuline and then came home and put Yunho on his front and ate him out until he was sobbing, but none of that explains why Changmin’s search history apparently features a heavy amount of what Yunho’s unfortunately comeback-oriented mind is unable to pretend aren’t _butt plugs_.

Yunho swallows uselessly a few times, before reaching for the nearest water bottle to chug desperately at its contents.

“That’s mine,” Changmin says without looking up from his phone like some sort of mutant.

“Your tongue was in my mouth this morning,” Yunho fires back immediately around the water bottle. He regrets that sentence instantly, because Changmin really could come for him if he chose to respond. See of course, what Changmin did the night before after his drunken night out with Kyuline.

Yunho’s ass.

Changmin did Yunho’s ass.

Yunho would like to drown himself with the water in Changmin’s water bottle.

Standing over by the clothing racks straightening her fake trench coat, Juhee snorts.

Yunho turns towards her, more than a little desperate. “Jealous?”

“Only of Changmin-oppa,” Yunho’s favorite dancer fires back, and fake ducks the fake object Changmin pretends to throw at her.

“Mine,” the younger man says. He’s still not looking up from his phone, but his hands have stilled. “Get your paws off.”

Juhee lifts an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t I have to put my paws on first?” she says.

“Wait, hold on--” Yunho is grateful for the larger distraction, dropping Changmin’s water bottle down on the counter next to his computer, and flouncing over to Juhee so that she can put both perfectly manicured hands right across his shoulders.

Juhee’s a beta and far too much like Jihye for Yunho to be anything but teasing, but she’s also Changmin’s age and fully willing to indulge Yunho’s work ethic and perfectionism in the practice room, so Yunho finally manages to stop grinning like a idiot who just found his other half was for some reason shopping for sex toys, and bends to let the woman put her paws all over, as it were.

He’s not been shoved into the top half of their stage costumes yet, left in just the white dress pants and black dress shoes and a black t-shirt that frankly, fits sinfully well.

Ever since Yunho put it on this morning Changmin had been looking at him like he was ten seconds from jumping him, audience and potential for getting them fired bedamned.

Yunho swallows, distracted again, but far more pleasantly this time.

Juhee slides her hands off of Yunho’s shoulders and down across the front of the shirt. Her hands stand out against the stark cotton of the shirt, and Yunho won’t lie: he likes the contrast of it.

In the corner, pointedly not looking up from his phone, Yunho swears he can see a muscle jump in Changmin’s jaw.

He smirks wider; God bless pheromones.

“Never mind,” breathes Juhee. She strokes over Yunho’s chest with a cheeky grin. “Paws all over.”

Hyoje pokes his head up as if summoned, and comes over to join in. “Why are we groping Hyung?” he says, darting amused looks between Yunho, Juhee, and Changmin like they’ve been told they’ve won _Music Core_.

“Changmin-oppa dared me to,” Juhee says.

“That’s a lie,” mutters Changmin, but nobody is listening to him.

“Ohhh,” Hyoje says happily. “Can I?”

Yunho rolls his eyes, but nods.

“Cool,” Hyoje says, which seems to be the magic word. The other female dancers don’t join in on the fun and Juhee eventually does back off when their staff notice, but Yunho still ends up in the center of what feels more like a puppy pile and less like a mass grope.

By the time Changmin finally lifts his head up from his phone, Yunho determines he’s actually a little bit overwhelmed, even as he’s laughing it all off and trying to extricate himself from the lot of them.

“Guys,” he starts to say, still smiling, but Changmin interrupts him before he has to get serious.

“Jung Yunho,” he says, standing to his full height and setting down his phone. “What are you doing?”

Yunho feels his muscles lock into place and probably every single hair on his body stand to attention. “Nothing,” he says, a little guilty, and a lot aroused.

Everyone in the room can probably smell it.

“Gross,” Juhee mutters, but she doesn’t mean it, because when Yunho turns towards her, she smiles back at him like they’re siblings.

“The gold standard,” Changmin rebuffs her with a smirk, and smiles when Yunho manages to extricate himself from their clutches.

“Whatever.” Juhee lifts both hands, before turning towards Eunkyung to talk quietly amongst themselves.

Changmin regards the both of them with his hands at his sides and one brow lifted, but the effect is sort of ruined by the butterfly clips still in his hair.

“Practicing,” Yunho says, in answer to Changmin’s question, and makes to walk to the other man in time for their stylists to hurry in to pull the things out both of their hair.

One of them grabs Yunho by the outstretched hand and pivots him in place, fingers going into his hair to fuss with the bits of blue keeping Yunho’s bangs in line.

“What are you doing? They said you’re on standby in twenty minutes--”

“Jacket,” another stylists scolds, not giving Yunho any time to spare before he’s being hurried out of the t-shirt and into the dress shirt. “Where are the bow ties--”

“I want the white one,” Yunho says, and pouts like he doesn’t know he’s getting the white one.

From his place over by the mirror being primped and polished into his own dress shirt and white suit jacket, Changmin scowls at him. “That’s not cute,” he says.

Yunho deepens his pout. “It is so,” he says.

Their staff coo over him a little, even as they finish with the buttons of his shirt and start to feed the white bowtie around his collar. Someone’s gotten him a red satin cummerbund, strategically placed so that it covers and steadies his mic pack. Changmin’s is black, to match his bowtie, but the pocket square poking out of the front pocket of his suit jacket matches Yunho’s for fabric and brightness of red.

They always match because they’re a duo, but Yunho still feels floaty-happy about it.

“It is not,” Changmin says darkly, clearly still on about the aegyo.

“You’re just jealous I’ve stolen aegyo from you,” Yunho determines, once they’ve finished with his costume. He smiles at the stylists, and then turns back towards their things. His t-shirt has ended up lying over by Changmin’s laptop, strewn haphazardly like someone flung it.

Yunho looks at the computer and is unable to not remember where things had started in the first place.

Butt plugs. Changmin had been searching for butt plugs. What in the hell was that supposed to _mean_?

Changmin seems to have finished being outfitted, minus the jacket, and the stylists have moved on to letting the waves in his hair free from their many clips. “Sure,” he says, breaking Yunho out of his horrible reverie. “That’s exactly it--” They finish with him, and he steps up to stand next to Yunho over by the mirror, one hand coming to settle along Yunho’s lower back--

Yunho flinches and Changmin blinks like he’s gotten an electric shock. “Hyung?”

“I’m fine,” Yunho yelps, stepping forward and pivoting. “I’m fine--aren’t we filming something?”

Hosik-hyung appears as if summoned but darts a few nervous looks between the two of them. “Yeah,” their manager says finally, and waves Jungmin-hyung forward with the cue cards and what looks like toy guns--

“It’s a shooting game, no--not now--”

Yunho extends the thing forward, pleased. Someone snaps a photo. Someone tells Changmin to pose as well.

Someone gets very gently shot in the chest before they’re due to be on standby for the pre-recording.

Then they go on stage and win, and Yunho forgets all about it, particularly since Changmin wins their little post- _Music Core_ shoot out and gets to hit Yunho in the head with a toy mallet.

“Sorry, Hyung,” he says, not sounding sorry _at all_ , and cackles all the way to the car.

Somewhere in the interim he steals Yunho’s phone, uses it to look up _more websites about butt plugs_ , and hands it back to Yunho.

“Are you okay? Did Changminnie hit you too hard?” Hosik-hyung has the audacity to ask.

Yunho just shoves his phone in his jacket pocket and _glares_ at the man.

\--

Heechul-hyung thinks the entire thing is hilarious.

Yunho would like to disown the man in favor of new friends. “Stop laughing,” he says.

Heechul-hyung just sprawls happily across Yunho’s bed and keeps cackling like Christmas has come a full ten months early. “Yunho-yah,” he says, ignoring how Yunho’s first impulse is to flinch because part of him still associates informality with Changmin and sex. “You just told me that Changminnie keeps sending you links to _butt plugs_.”

Yunho crosses his arms and glares at Heechul-hyung. “I did not,” he says. “I said I think Changminnie doesn’t know how to use a computer--”

“That’s absurd,” Heechul-hyung dismisses Yunho without even pausing. “Changmin’s killer with technology--he and Kyu did ridiculous things with our place back when we were living on the same floor--”

“You never lived on the same floor,” Yunho interrupts, annoyed. He settles more solidly onto his own bed and scowls. “And why are you here anyway?”

Heechul-hyung’s expression goes immediately guilty, and Yunho frowns harder.

“Hyung.”

Heechul-hyung doesn’t stand, but he very suddenly looks less amused by the entire situation. “So did you poke around on the websites or just close out of them like some sort of blushing virgin?”

Yunho stares back at him with his mouth open. “Heechul-hyung!”

“Blushing virgin,” Heechul-hyung determines. He sits up at as well. “Really, Yunho, I don’t get it. You’re practically married to Shim ‘I totally watch porn and will confess to this on national television _in front of my mother_ ’ Changmin, and yet the mere thought of a butt plug--”

Yunho crosses his arms across his chest angrily and tries not to pout, mouth opening to try to respond.

Heechul-hyung stops him before he can, one arm going straight into the air. “Hang on. You already own a sex toy--”

“Changmin bought me Kyungtae,” Yunho mutters darkly. “And anyway--” He breaks off, brain whirring. “Oh my God.”

Heechul-hyung lowers his arm, pausing. “What?”

“What if Changmin wants me to buy him a butt plug?”

Heechul-hyung is looking at Yunho with pained, patronizing eyes, but Yunho continues regardless.

“He’s probably embarrassed about it so he’s just…” He trails off, at a loss.

“… handing you cellphones open to searches for butt plugs?” finishes Heechul-hyung. He reaches across the bed and thwacks Yunho on the head, and Yunho takes it with a mild cry.

“Ow.” He rubs at the top of his head, but nods. “Thanks. I deserved that.”

“Yurobbong.” Heechul-hyung has switched to regarding Yunho with complete and perfect calm. “Changminnie clearly wants to buy _you_ a butt plug.”

Yunho blinks. This was not the conclusion he had reached. After their win on Inkigayo, Changmin had decided to go back to his own apartment, and Yunho had been left alone with their all-kill trophies and an iPad that wasn’t his still open to a butt plug emporium, at which point he’d phoned Heechul-hyung panicking, and the man had rushed over to help him out. Mostly, Yunho had just been worried that Changmin was somehow becoming dissatisfied with their sex life and wanted Yunho to do something to spice it up… or else Changmin would go elsewhere, namely silicone.

Which in hindsight, makes absolutely no sense--Changmin _hates_ Kyungtae.

“Yunho-yah.” Heechul-hyung claps pointedly in front of Yunho’s eyes. “Stop thinking about dildos and concentrate.”

“I wasn’t thinking about dildos,” Yunho sulks.

Heechul-hyung rolls his eyes. “You were thinking about your dildo--”

“I was thinking about your dick, actually, and how it’s probably not all that great.”

Heechul-hyung rolls his eyes and falls back onto Yunho’s pillows with a dramatic sigh. “You wound me, Yurobbong, really. Think of what we could have.”

“STIs?” Yunho says dryly, and grins and flops down next to Heechul-hyung when the older man leaps up to shout at him. He lifts both hands in surrender. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

Heechul-hyung grumbles but settles down beside him anyway, sharing the same pillow. It’s not Changmin’s pillow, so Yunho’s fine with that.

“You’re always giving me advice in bed,” Yunho continues, to watch Heechul-hyung grumble and flush a little at his side. “Forgive me for presuming--”

“I’ll have you know that I am pristine as the proverbial snow,” Heechul-hyung says, hand up in the air again. “Stop laughing. I will disown you.”

“Please,” Yunho says. “I’ve been trying to get rid of you for months--”

“And what would you do without me to help you figure out Changminnie’s bizarre alpha-isms?” Heechul-hyung says. “Continue to waste away here thinking that your fool of a mate wants you to buy _him_ a butt plug?”

“Alpha-isms,” Yunho parrots back, bemused. “Hyung--”

“Yunho-yah.” Heechul rolls in one synchronized move and takes Yunho’s face in both palms. “Changmin wants to buy a butt pug _for you_.”

Yunho stares up at his hyung with his cheeks pressed in around his mouth and hums. “Huh,” he says. “Yeah, that still doesn’t compute--”

Heechul-hyung lets go of Yunho’s face and backs away from him on the bed like he’d been going in for a kiss or something, and Yunho rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck and sits up as well. “Um--”

“Changmin is an idiot,” Heechul-hyung mutters, first to himself, and then louder when Yunho looks at him. “Clearly, he’s testing the waters.”

Yunho continues to look at him.

Heechul-hyung sighs. “Kyu probably advised him,” he tries.

That translates. “Ahhh,” Yunho says. “Kyu’s an idiot.”

Heechul-hyung thwacks him on the head again, and this time Yunho feels solidly undeserving.

“Ow,” he says again, rubbing at his forehead. “What was that for--?”

“That’s my maknae you’re talking shit about,” Heechul-hyung says with great dignity. “Watch it.”

Yunho blinks at him. “Is this revenge for earlier?” he decides finally. He yawns, a little tired from the extensive pre-recording from earlier, and settles back against his pillows again. “Because gross.”

Heechul-hyung sighs. “You’re right, it doesn’t work,” he says. “Given that I am not currently sleeping with Cho Kyuhyun, and that the thought of doing so is actually nauseating--”

“Good, I love you too, Hyung,” says Kyuhyun pleasantly, passing through Yunho’s hallway with his shoes already off and a wide smile spread across his face.

Yunho turns towards the door with his mouth open in question, before Changmin makes himself known weaving around his friend.

“Hi, Hyung,” he says. “Yunho.”

Heechul-hyung waves.

Yunho blinks.

Kyuhyun continues to regard the two of them settled across Yunho’s bed with disdain. “Hmm,” the younger man says. “Chwang--”

“I will kill you and wear you to Gag Concert recording,” Changmin says evenly, before disappearing further into the apartment.

Kyuhyun smiles at Yunho and Heechul-hyung once, before following after him. “That sounds disgusting,” Yunho hears him say.

Heechul-hyung doesn’t seem bothered about being interrupted. “You have got to stop giving him a key,” he says.

Yunho looks at him. “I told you we live together during promotions,” he says. “It’s easier.”

“You live together period,” Heechul-hyung corrects, hoisting himself to his feet with a great groan.

Yunho watches him with vague concern, because he knows firsthand how much aches and pains promotion and touring can cause. “Are you okay?”

“I really must be going, actually,” Heechul-hyung says. “I’ve got a birthday party to attend.”

“None of us have January birthdays except Sungmin-hyung and he didn’t have a party,” Yunho says, before his brain finishes filling out the blank spaces, and the guilty set to Heechul-hyung’s mouth very suddenly makes more sense. “Oh,” Yunho says.

“Yeah,” Heechul-hyung says. He rubs at the back of his neck.

Yunho swallows. He gets to his feet. “Tell him ‘Hi,’ I guess,” he says, unable to keep the awkwardness from every bone in his body, to the point where in the kitchen, he can hear Kyuhyun berating Changmin for dropping something, and the sound of his other half shouting at his best friend to shut up.

“Ow--Changmin--I don’t know who has a January birthday--” Kyuhyun continues, and Heechul-hyung’s expression clouds over even more.

“I--” he says.

“You don’t need my permission, Hyung,” Yunho says, voice still feeling brittle.

“No,” Heechul-hyung says, staring somewhere over Yunho’s shoulder.

Yunho doesn’t have to turn to know that Changmin’s left Kyuhyun and the kitchen and come to check up on him; he can smell it, and he can practically hear the grind of Changmin’s bones as the other man white knuckles the door frame.

“I don’t need yours either,” Heechul-hyung says.

Changmin’s teeth gnash together and Yunho swears he can hear them like they’re wearing microphones and each other’s inears. He swallows.

“Heechul-hyung.”

Heechul-hyung walks around the bed and slaps a hand to Yunho’s shoulder. “Yurobbong,” he says. “Yurobbong’s other half.”

Changmin’s grip on the doorframe seems to lessen a little but he smells no less foreboding.

“Remember my advice about the internet--”

Yunho steps forward panickedly and tries to convey with his eyes how very much he does _not_ want to have this conversation.  

“--and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

There’s a long silence.

Yunho turns with Heechul-hyung to regard Changmin, who for a long moment, doesn’t look like he’s going to step aside anytime soon.

Then the man sighs, smiles, and moves so that Heechul-hyung can leave the room. “Is there anything you wouldn’t do?” he says, and grins when Heechul-hyung elbows him on his way.

“I think you should divorce him,” he tells Yunho, before calling into the rest of the apartment for Kyuhyun. “Cho Maknae! I’m leaving!”

He nods once more to Yunho, smiles knowingly at Changmin, and then is on his way.

Yunho settles into Changmin’s side in the doorway and heaves a long, drawn out sigh. “That was awkward,” he says.

Changmin puts the hand not destroying Yunho’s doorframe across Yunho’s left hip bone, thumb circling the bare flesh there almost in comfort. “You’re not going to ignore him for two weeks again, are you?”

Yunho turns to look up at him. “I never did that,” he says.

Changmin smiles at him, amused, but lets Yunho go to tickle him regardless. “Yah. Hyung--”

“Heechul-hyung can be friends with whomever he wants,” Yunho continues, annoyed. “You’re the one holding grudges.”

Changmin’s smile slides away. “They said awful things about you,” he mutters. “About us--”

“It was a long time ago,” Yunho interrupts, not eager to rehash the past. “And I forgave them--”

“I haven’t,” Changmin says pleasantly. “But you’re right.” He pinches the skin of Yunho’s hip almost to remind Yunho that he’s holding him, and then starts to pull away before Yunho can do anything in response. “Heechul-hyung can be friends with whomever he likes. And attend whichever birthday parties he likes.” Changmin’s mouth turns down. “Did he touch you, though?”

Yunho blinks. “Um. Yes? You saw--?” Yunho yelps, startled, when Changmin stops disengaging from their huddle and instead hauls Yunho in close so that he has to go up on his tiptoes and cross his eyes to keep eye contact. “Changdol--what--”

Changmin leans in close up against the shell of Yunho’s ear and breathes, deeply and pointedly and like he’s inhaling a secret.

Yunho can feel his heart going staccato fast against his ribcage, and his knees feel a little wobbly. “Changdol?” His voice squeaks.

Changmin draws his nose along the line of Yunho’s jaw, lips brushing against the skin of Yunho’s neck in a barely there caress. “He’s going to smell like you,” he says finally.

Yunho hadn’t thought about that.

Now it’s all he can think about. He puts both hands on Changmin’s hips to steady himself, and after a moment, drags them down and around to cup him by the ass.

“True,” he says. “What--” Yunho’s throat bobs, breath exhaling somewhere around Changmin’s halo of fluffy hair. “What do I smell like--”

“Like mine,” Changmin breathes out, voice nothing more than a purr, and Yunho goes boneless and forgetful in an instant.

Before he can lean down to kiss Changmin, spin them around and start walking the younger man towards his very conveniently located bed and destroy any lingering trace of Heechul-hyung walking around his sheets, Yunho is interrupted by Kyuhyun, clearing his throat and standing awkwardly in the middle of the doorway leading out into Yunho’s living room.

“Great,” Changmin’s friend says. “I’m a third wheel.”

Changmin pulls away from Yunho’s throat with a hiss, ignoring the way Yunho reaches for him and charging for Kyuhyun with purpose. “You’re a dead man walking, is what you are,” Changmin starts to say, before Yunho interjects.

“Kyuhyun,” he says, not at all shakily. “Have you eaten? How did the show go?”

Kyuhyun manages the subject changes with great dignity, gaze still stuck on the frozen, half murderous Changmin standing in the hallway. “Um, good, thank you, Yunho-hyung. And Chwang and I were just going to raid your kitchen and leave--”

“You mean you were going to leave,” Changmin says darkly, but Yunho steps quickly around him and smiles.

“I haven’t eaten yet, either,” Yunho says. “I’ll join you.”

Kyuhyun looks between Changmin and Yunho one last helpless time. “That’s really not necessary, Yunho-hyung,” he says. “I really should be going--”

“No, I insist,” Yunho says, putting a hand on Kyuhyun’s arm and smiling even harder. “Have you been working out?”

Behind him, he can practically hear the smoke come out of Changmin’s ears.

\--

The situation comes to a head the day before Yunho’s birthday, trapped in his own bathroom while Changmin goes through his entire workout regime in Yunho’s living room with his trainer along for the ride. There is a lot of counting and Changmin breathing hard and swearing and _sweating_ , and Yunho ends up excusing himself more than a few times to fan himself in the master bathroom and try to determine via the internet if Changmin could somehow go into rut in the middle of early February.

Only when he goes to delete that search from his history, he’s assaulted once more by Changmin’s unfortunate and unrelenting quest to try to get Yunho to do something with a butt plug.

So Yunho breaks down, puts the toilet lid down, and _sits_ down to have a very small cry.

And then he calls Donghae, because Heechul-hyung will laugh him out of Seoul itself.

“Yunho-hyung!” Donghae sounds happy to hear from him. “Congratulations on your comeback!”

“Donghae, the comeback ended,” Yunho tries to say.

“I heard you’re dying your hair for the repackage,” Donghae continues, still cheerful and almost too loudly. “Purple?”

“Pink,” Yunho says, sighing. “Donghae--”

“You should do it on Changmin’s birthday,” his friend keeps talking, clearly not listening to Yunho at all. “That would be great--or are you giving him the bracelet--”

Yunho puts his hand over the phone’s bottom desperately, like for some reason Changmin is going to stop doing whatever tortuous ab exercise Jongseok-hyung has had him doing for the past ten minutes and come eavesdrop on Yunho’s breakdown in the bathroom.

“Donghae,” he whines. “That’s a secret.”

Donghae doesn’t sound worried. “Oops,” he says. “But really, it’s been a month. Isn’t it a birthday present?”

“We don’t do birthday presents,” Yunho mutters darkly. “And no, it’s for our anniversary, which is in _months_ \--” He breaks off, feeling tricked, and glowers at nothing. “Donghae.”

Donghae has gone worryingly silent.

After a moment, he hears Hyukjae in the background. “Anniversary?” Suju’s head dancer says. “Damn. I called it. You want to tell Heechul-hyung or should I?”

“Did you bet on Changmin and I?” Yunho says finally, interrupting the both of them. “Donghae-yah.”

Donghae isn’t fazed. “We’re idols,” he says. “What else are we supposed to do to earn money?”

Yunho opens and closes his mouth a few times. “Sing and perform for our fans?” he says. “Was that rhetorical--”

“No, I walked into that--poor phrasing,” Donghae says, sounding like he can’t fault Yunho for speaking. “Regardless. If you’re not giving Changmin the bracelet for his birthday, then what are you doing instead?”

Yunho feels a headache starting behind his temples, and is tempted to go back into his kitchen to watch Changmin work himself into a lather and rage-surf the home shopping network in hopes of winning five extra coffee machines to help soothe his suddenly roaring libido. “For the last time,” he says slowly. “We don’t do presents.”

“Then why does Changminnie keep sending you butt plug links?” Donghae asks immediately.

There is the equally instant sound of Hyukjae dying in the background, then what is probably Donghae thumping his mate helpfully on the back a few times.

Yunho gives up and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Heechul-hyung told you,” he says.

“Actually Kyu,” Donghae says, still sounding like he’s consoling Hyukjae with one hand. “The link thing was Kyu’s idea--Minho told them they were idiots and threatened to just tell you himself, but Changmin keeps secrets like he’s plotting the end of the universe, and Kyu kept going green every time he talked about it.”

Yunho smirks, pleased, as warmth spread through his stomach.

Donghae sighs. “You’re into that,” he determines. “Of course.”

“You’re just jealous that Changmin could rule the world if he wanted to,” Yunho says.

There’s another bout of Hyukjae choking on air and Donghae hitting him to help him. Then: “that is _not_ helping _at_ all, stop _hitting me_ \--”

“Anyway, if he’s not getting you the butt plug for your birthday--”

“Wait, Kyu said he wants to get me a butt plug for my birthday?” Yunho says over top what sounds like Donghae’s resuscitation of his basically husband.

There’s more silence.

Yunho listens to the drone of the home shopping network accompanied by the heavy breathing and complaining that is Changmin preparing for their Spring tour.

“No?” Donghae sounds like he regrets having answered his phone.

Yunho purses his lips. “Hyukjae--”

“Ow!” Donghae says loudly, clearly having been hit in return. “That _hurt_ \--”

“Hitting someone in the back is not _CPR_ , you absolute idiot,” Hyukjae says pointedly. “Hi, Yunho-hyung.”

“Thank you,” Yunho replies. “Donghae.”

Donghae doesn’t respond, and then Hyukjae must lift a hand or something, because he yelps again and then says, “Fine, okay, fine, _fine_ \--” before Yunho can hear footsteps. “Bully,” Donghae mutters.

“The love of your life,” Hyukjae parries back.

“Is this what Changmin and I sound like?” Yunho cuts in with vague horror.

“Worse,” Hyukjae and Donghae reply immediately. “So much worse.”

“Okay, thank you,” Yunho tells them both before they can keep going. “Donghae?”

“What--wait, no--stop it--” Donghae walks forward again. “Kyu did say that the reason Changmin’s sending you those links is because he wants to buy you one for your birthday.”

Yunho sits back on the toilet and thinks that over. “My birthday is tomorrow,” he starts with.

“Yes--ow--Hyukjae!”

Yunho tunes out the couples spat happening on the other end of the line in favor of determining what he’s going to do with the lover currently working out in the middle of his apartment.

“We never do birthdays,” he says. “We decided years ago--”

“I mean, that was before you were dating, though,” Donghae says, overtop Hyukjae’s muttering. “What kind of boyfriend would Changmin be if he didn’t give you anything on your twenty-ninth birthday?”

“We’re old,” Yunho says suddenly, voice hollow. “Why would you say that?”

“I will slap you myself,” Hyukjae says into the phone suddenly. “Yunho-hyung, We are not old. Pull yourself together.”

“We’re _ancient_ \--”

“Changmin can bench press your weight, can’t he,” Donghae says suddenly. “Could old people do that?”

“Changmin,” Yunho says with great dignity. “Is not twenty-nine years old.”

Donghae pauses. “And neither technically are you… we… so there…” Then he hangs up.

Yunho is left listening to the dial tone for a long time, before pulling the phone away from his ear to text Donghae quickly that he didn’t mean it and of course Donghae is still young and beautiful and Suju’s second best visual.

 _Second best!????????_ Donghae sends back immediately, to which Yunho sends a whole assortment of horse emoji until his friend stops responding.

Then he stands, flushes the toilet to throw absolutely nobody off the scent, and goes back out into the living room to the home shopping network and the love of his life.

The next day passes with cake and presents from everyone and their mother (and Yunho’s own mother, which end up being incredibly passive aggressive and somehow still tear-inducing when he finishes fighting Changmin over who really gets to eat all the food first: Yunho; it’s his birthday; fuck the fact that Changmin could actually cook all of it if he wanted to; fuck the fact that Yunho’s mother addressed the card to the both of them).

Unfortunately, it also doesn’t bring the number of sex toys Yunho keeps under the bed up to two, which Yunho takes great joy in cornering Donghae after the festivities to snap at him about.

“Ow--please cut your nails--do you finger Changmin with hands like that-- _ow_ \--I’m sorry--I’ll _never_ say that again--”

“Changmin didn’t get me _anything_ ,” Yunho says angrily right in his friend’s face. “Explain yourself.”

Donghae stares back at him like he can’t quite believe it. “I’m not a mind reader? You didn’t actually take my advice and tell Changmin like a normal person you wouldn’t mind if he bought you a sex toy?”

Yunho continues to narrow his eyes at Donghae, but also concedes the point. He didn’t tell Changmin point blank that he wouldn’t mind, but he’d also heavily implied it. It wasn’t like he hadn’t made a point to pin Changmin to his workout bench and ride him to one satisfying (for Yunho) orgasm and then turned him over and fucked his brains out all the while complaining about the leaking issue and bemoaning the state of Changmin’s couch.

Changmin had been working out, unfortunately, so there were towels and the thing was basically plastic but Yunho had thought that Changmin had understood.

Although in hindsight maybe Changmin had mostly just wanted to come.

But Yunho has digressed.

Donghae is staring at him with a wrinkle between his brows and an air of knowing disgust.

Yunho feels the need to apologize. He swallows his guilt. “I didn’t,” he answers Donghae’s question. “But, Hae--”

“This is not my fault,” Donghae says. “And also, why don’t you get him one for _his birthday_?”

Yunho blinks. “But I’m dying my hair for his birthday.”

Donghae reaches up to clutch at his hair. “Why did I let Heechul-hyung introduce me to you?”

Yunho frowns at him. “Hey.”

Donghae takes him by both arms. “Yunho-hyung.” He’s speaking in short, to the point sentences. “If you want Changmin to buy you a butt plug. Buy yourself a butt plug for his birthday.”

“That literally makes no sense--”

“You said you don’t even do presents,” Donghae says. “Why should he get to get you something--you’re the Hyung--”

“And the omega,” Yunho says sourly, and Donghae slaps him on the arm. “Ow,” Yunho says. “Sorry.”

Donghae’s expression is rapidly going thunderous.

Yunho hurries to continue. “No, I’m sorry, I’m drunk-- It’s my birthday? I’m an idiot,” he cycles through excuse, before settling. “Sorry,” he says again.

Donghae’s expression softens. “This is why your father and I don’t get along,” he says pragmatically.

Yunho barks out a laugh. “You’re not the first to say that to me,” he says.

Donghae finally smiles at him, before letting go of his arms. “We should get back,” he says, cocking his head back towards the festivities happening inside 85st. “You’re kind of the man of the hour--”

“I’m surprised they haven’t missed me,” Yunho agrees, and goes to head back in for another round. Then he stops and doesn’t look over his shoulder. “Donghae-yah?”

Donghae hums.

“Thanks,” Yunho says.

“You’re welcome,” Donghae says again.

“You’re a really good friend,” Yunho adds.

Donghae audibly prunes. “I am.”

“So because you’re such a good friend… would you mind buying it for me?” Yunho continues, tripping his words together at the end. “You will? Thanks, Hae-yah, you’re really something--”

“What--I don’t-- _what_ \--Yunho-hyung-- _Yunho-hyung_ \-- _yah!_ ”

Yunho rounds the corner back around to his birthday celebration, grinning for more than one reason.

\--

“You absolutely fucking _owe_ me,” Donghae says, showing up at the hair salon with a nondescript bag in tow. “If I get divorced--if I get _sacked_ \--”

“Donghae-yah!” Yunho yelps, halfway under the sink with his hair already lifted to a level nine. “What are you doing?”

Donghae thrusts the bag in his direction and shoots him an utterly unimpressed look. “It’s Changmin’s birthday,” he says. “Where are my flowers?”

Yunho darts nervous looks around the salon--there are no fans here, since SM has taken great precautions to keep Yunho and Changmin’s repackage concepts under wraps (it has been a while since Yunho had anything exciting done to his hair, and pastel is something he’s never done before), but Yunho is still paranoid and _freaking out_ because Lee Donghae is standing in front of him wearing sunglasses, a giant winter coat, and holding a newly purchased butt plug in a bag between them.

“Its name is Hyuntae,” Donghae continues, entirely uncaring of Yunho’s breakdown.

The woman fussing with Yunho’s hair slaps his hands away when he goes to stand up, and keeps hosing him down.  

“I had to go to Minho to make sure it fucking matched--”

Yunho makes a pained yelping noise and the woman working on his hair stops.

“Yunho-ssi?”

“I’m fine,” Yunho manages.

“And the sparkles are never going to leave the dorm, now, so you’re fucking keeping it,” Donghae finishes.

Yunho is released from the washing station and sent back to the mirror to have the pink dye applied to his hair.

Donghae follows him. “The name, I mean,” he clarifies. “And the thing itself--if you don’t give it to him I will murder you--”

“I’ll give it to him!” Yunho says desperately. “I promise I’ll give it to him! Now can you just leave it here--” He points over to his things, heart pounding. “And leave me alone--” He points at the door pointedly. “I’d like to come out of this with hair--”

Donghae walks over to Yunho’s jacket and set the bag with the butt plug down with a disdainful look, before shoving his hands into his pockets. “You look like sunscreen,” he says, pointing to Yunho’s bleach blond hair. “I’ll see you at the party.”

“Thank you, Donghae, I love you!” Yunho cries after his friend and spends the rest of his dye job staring at the mirror trying to school his expression into something far less threatening in time for Changmin’s birthday.

\--

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments, kudos, and retweets make my day!
> 
> [Tumblr masterpost](http://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/175607938300/right-now-you-and-i-are-clumsy-but-youre) || [Twitter masterpost](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1015234891733196801)


	8. crash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betated by Hexmen and Kinah. All other mistakes are my own.
> 
> Thank you so much for 305 kudos!!!

** 8\. Crash **

\--

Yunho loses his nerve in the car for all of five seconds. He stopped over at Changmin’s place before heading to SM for the party to the rolled eyes of Hosik-hyung and the long-suffering emoji of the man himself (and a message that simply read: _If you so much as light a candle in my room or put rose petals in my apartment I will divorce you_ ) to plop Hyuntae into a pot of boiling water. The entire process had felt rather like déjà vu; Yunho had cleaned the sex toy at least two times, laughed nervously like his world was ending, before running it into Changmin’s bathroom to sit it unobtrusively on the sink countertop in preparation. Then he looked himself in the mirror, told himself to grow the fuck up, fluffed his newly dyed pink hair, and went to Changmin’s birthday party.

All of Changmin’s friends wolf whistled when Yunho came in the door wearing wire rim glasses with new pink hair, but all Yunho could look at was Changmin dressed to the nines being cornered by three managers for a photo in a birthday hat, and still somehow managing to stare at Yunho like he was barely sixteen and falling in love at first sight. They spent the entire party nearly attached at the hip; Yunho didn’t shove Changmin into a cake because they weren’t in Tokyo; Changmin didn’t put his hands all over Yunho’s hips in a corner because they weren’t in Tokyo; and by the end of the night even Hosik-hyung looked teary-eyed, and Jungmin-hyung was smiling soft enough that they got away with a kiss without checking to see who was in the room.

So, by all means Yunho has no reason to be scared shitless for the entire ride home, but he is.

And unfortunately for him, Changmin’s not a scent blind idiot.

“Yunho-hyung,” he says. “Did you finally agree to let Heechul-hyung dress you like a girl?”

Yunho chokes on his own saliva and is grateful he’s not the one driving.

Jooyoung-hyung, as the one driving, mostly looks grateful that they’re both in the back seat of the car. 

Changmin seems pleased with the turn of events. “That’s not a no,” he says.

Yunho chokes some more. “It absolutely is!” he says.

“Ah,” Changmin says. “Too bad--”

“What do you mean too bad?” Yunho says, head spinning, but also much less panicked about his gift waiting in Changmin’s bathroom. “Changmin’s place, Hyung--”

Jooyoung-hyung takes the correct exit with an eye roll from the front seat, but ignores Yunho’s backseat driving with all the practice of years spent managing them.

“I mean too bad,” Changmin says. “You know you’d look great in tights.”

Yunho is seriously considering throwing himself out of their car, but it’s not slowing fast enough for that to be survivable. “Shim Changmin,” he says. 

“You have amazing thighs, Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says. “What am I supposed to say?”

Yunho’s mind goes back to the last time Changmin talked about his thighs and his right hip sympathy throbs immediately. “Unfair,” he rasps. “You said that the night you mated me.”

Changmin’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “Oh, did I?” he says. “What a coincidence.”

Yunho narrows his own eyes. “You’re lucky it’s your birthday,” he grumbles.

Changmin reaches out to take Yunho by the hand--the bastard--brings it to his lips--the _bastard_ \--and kisses it--that. Bastard. 

Yunho whines and allows it and blushes like he drank alcohol at the party. He didn’t. He absolutely definitely didn’t. “I hate you,” he says miserably.

“I love you,” Changmin says.

Yunho tries to take his hand back, aghast. “Changmin-ah.”

Changmin doesn’t even make a face like he usually does after he’s been particularly saccharine. “It’s my birthday,” he says.

Yunho doesn’t know where to look. “Hyung,” he says, even as he keeps staring at Changmin’s eyes. “Changmin’s been replaced by an imposter.”

“Unfortunately, no,” Jooyoung-hyung says pleasantly. “Changmin’s always been lovesick--just not around you.”

Changmin finally looks away from Yunho. “I have not!” he says.

Jooyoung-hyung’s eyes glint.

Yunho turns towards him in a new light. “Hyung?”

“I will _fire_ you,” Changmin growls.

Jooyoung-hyung mimes zipping his lips, but winks at Yunho at the same time.

Changmin sinks back in the seat, grumbling.

Yunho shifts one leg out so that their knees knock together in solidarity, while smirking at Changmin’s manager.

“It’s my birthday,” Changmin pouts. “You’re being mean.”

Yunho’s brain goes somewhere awful and his lips part.

Changmin’s pupils dilate in automatic response. 

Jooyoung-hyung groans from the front seat, but makes the turn into Changmin’s too fancy for them all apartment complex. 

Yunho’s heart, which had somehow managed to calm itself once he stopped thinking about the present he had planned, picks up again.

Changmin frowns a little. “Yunho-hyung,” he says. “You’re making me nervous.”

Jooyoung-hyung pulls into the parking garage, cruising up to the correct floor at a slower speed. 

“Good,” Yunho tells Changmin as they slow outside the door into the building. 

Jooyoung-hyung clears his throat.

Changmin keeps sitting in Yunho’s way with his eyes shrewd.

Yunho lifts his head high, unbuckles his seat, and drags himself out of the car overtop Changmin’s lap.

“If you touch him I will _kill_ you--” Jooyoung-hyung says before Changmin can so much as move, and Yunho smirks as he pulls open the van door and heads to the garage door.

He doesn’t wait for Changmin or grab any of his stuff out of the van and hopes that Changmin will take care of it and also not murder Jooyoung-hyung to figure out the surprise. Then he pulls out his phone so that he can text Donghae once he’s gotten in the elevator. 

_ I cannot believe you talked me into this _ .

Donghae doesn’t disappoint. _Murder_ , his friend says. _You better fucking give it to him._

_ I’m going to fucking give it to him _ , Yunho says, in time for the elevator to arrive on Changmin’s floor. He steps out of the doors and rounds the corner to stop outside Changmin’s door, one hand going into his jacket pocket for his key--

And then stops.

“Fuck,” Yunho swears. His jacket is in the van with Changmin. 

He looks down at his phone.

_ Good,  _ Donghae has said. _Tell me absolutely nothing about it_.

Yunho snorts. _You don’t want to know how Hyuntae is, Donghae-yah?_

There’s a very telling pause. 

Yunho’s mouth opens and closes. 

_ Donghae-yah _ ? he sends somewhat desperately. 

Donghae doesn’t say anything. 

_ Donghae-yah???? _ Yunho sends again. 

He gets back the eggplant emoji and the smirking emoji. 

Yunho lowers his phone.

_ Hyukjae-yah _ , he sends. _Kill your husband_.

Hyukjae sends him the water emoji.

Yunho very slowly puts his phone into his jeans pockets, face a parody of a smile.

“What’s wrong with your face?” Changmin says when he sees him, lugging all of their stuff and still somehow managing to look like every single one of Yunho’s dreams come true. 

“Shut up,” Yunho says, with great dignity. “See if I fuck you for your birthday.”

Changmin’s eyes blow a little black. He levels with Yunho and the door and unlocks it without breaking eye contact. “That’s fine,” he says. “I’ll just fuck you instead--”

Yunho should have seen that coming, and he laughs, startled, in time for Changmin to toss all their things loosely into his foyer, and walk them both into the apartment in one fell swoop.

Their shoes somehow make their way haphazardly into the shoe closet, the door to Changmin’s apartment somehow ends up closed, and Yunho somehow manages not to die when Changmin practically bulldozes him into the apartment up over the lip of the initial step. 

“Changdol--” Yunho tries to say, shoved up against the first wall Changmin found and being kissed within an inch of his life.

“Yunho,” Changmin replies, pulling back briefly before diving right back in. “It’s my birthday.”

Yunho fists a hand in the back of Changmin’s hair and tugs, humming when Changmin moans and shoves his tongue up behind Yunho’s front teeth. 

Changmin ends up palming through Yunho’s own hair, one hand cradling the back of his head to keep him from banging into the wall.

“Your hand--” Yunho says, when they part briefly to breathe, then whines when Changmin decides to leave his mouth for Yunho’s neck. He bites and licks and breathes to the point where Yunho’s entirely boneless and any and all plans for Changmin’s birthday present are forgotten. “Your bed,” he decides on.

Changmin hums his agreement out against Yunho’s clavicle, before lifting both of his legs up around his own waist and hoisting.

For a moment, they end up standing in Changmin’s hallway gasping for air.

Yunho can’t seem to look away from Changmin’s eyes, heart racing in his chest because the other man has been working out in preparation for the tour for certain, but it’s one thing to happen upon him doing burpees with Jongseok-hyung, and another to be wrapped around the man like some sort of marsupial. 

Changmin’s legs shake a little.

_ Yunho’s _ legs shake a little.

“I might drop you,” Changmin says.

“I don’t fucking care as long as you put your dick in me,” Yunho says. 

Somehow, they make it to the bed. Yunho’s not entirely sure how--it’s possible they end up distracted shoved up against the glass doors to the bedroom for a few minutes, but eventually they end up crashing down onto Changmin’s sheets, still attached at the mouth.

Yunho lets Changmin press him into the mattress with his eyes shut and thighs spread, running his hands up and down the sprawl of his back and shoulders over top his white t-shirt. “Changdollie,” he says, in between bruising burning kisses, sinking back into the bed and sighing when Changmin goes back to his neck for more. “Changdollie--”

“Are you my present?” Changmin breathes, pulled back from Yunho’s neck just a smidge and with his hips rocking almost like he can’t help it. 

Yunho stares up at him feeling quite like he’s run a marathon. His cock is hot and hard in his pants, pressing up against the seam of his zip and making him shift awkwardly against the bed. Which brings Yunho’s attention to his ass, leaking steadily into the seat of his pants. Because Yunho for sure did not wear boxers to the party today. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, namely, when he was standing in Changmin’s bathroom trying to decide if he was going to put the plug in his ass before he attended Changmin’s party after all.

At the moment, watching Changmin flutter his hands along the space where the hem of Yunho’s sweater and waistband of Yunho’s jeans meet, Yunho thinks past him was a proverbial genius who could see the future.

“Yes,” he gets out. “I mean--no--”

“I’m going to open you, then,” Changmin says, ignoring Yunho’s hasty attempts to backtrack. He purrs down Yunho’s zipper with one hand, then pauses for his breath to hitch when he finds bare skin. “Yunho-yah.”

Yunho stares up at him with his eyes blown wild and breathes. “Yes, Changdol?”

Changmin keeps staring down at him like he doesn’t know where to even start. 

“Happy birthday,” Yunho decides, in time for Changmin to make up his mind, pin Yunho’s hips the bed, and lean down to start kissing along the line of Yunho’s dick.

Yunho throws his head back on a gasp, leaking steadily now as Changmin stops playing around and puts his lips around Yunho and sucks, lewd, and dirty, and making Yunho’s eyes roll to the back of his head.

Changmin stops just around the head of Yunho’s cock, eyes darting up to look Yunho in the eye and then sucking again when Yunho can’t quite manage to hold his gaze, and Yunho moans.

“Fuck,” he says, leaking in earnest now and making an absolute mess of his jeans. He kicks out aimlessly with his socked feet, trying to get Changmin to take them off. 

The younger man puts his hands behind his back so that he can shuck out of his jacket leaving him in just the white t-shirt, but the move makes Yunho’s dick jump and his heart pound.

Changmin picks up on that, leaves his hands behind his back and blinks his big eyes one, mischievous time. He lets Yunho’s cock slip from between his lips. “Yunho-hyung,” he says hoarsely. “Fuck my mouth--”

It takes all of Yunho’s self-control to keep from following through on that command, hands coming down to bypass Changmin’s head to cover his own cock before he does something stupid. “Singing,” he says helplessly, not really making much sense. “‘Something.’ ‘Spellbound.’ Song.”

Changmin is staring down at where Yunho’s cupping his own dick looking very sad, which isn’t helping Yunho in the slightest.

“Your throat,” Yunho manages out, letting go of himself so that he can take advantage and start to get out of his jeans. “SM’ll kill me--”

“Let’s not talk about SM on my birthday,” Changmin decides, tone back to being no nonsense and in charge.

It makes something shivery go down Yunho’s spine and he kicks one leg free of his jeans, the other getting caught around his ankle. He doesn’t care. Changmin puts one warm hand on Yunho’s bare hip, and thumbs over the bite mark that lives there.

Yunho stares down at him and can’t even believe he’s his. “Changminnie-yah,” he says.

Changmin sighs, presses against Yunho’s mating mark one more time, before scooting up the bed helpfully. “Don’t say I never did anything for you,” he says. His breath only hitches slightly when Yunho shoves a hand down the back of his slacks to palm him by the left ass cheek. “I can’t believe you bit me there--”

“We’ll fake it for our wedding,” Yunho decides, not at all really paying Changmin much attention. He continues worming his way out of his jeans and humps up against Changmin’s hips.

“These are designer,” Changmin says, and squirms free of all of his clothes in what feels like record time. They go slipping off the bed to join his jacket on the floor, leaving Changmin naked as the day he was born, cock hard and curving up against the front of Yunho’s sweater. “Why are you wearing so many clothes?”

Yunho stares up at him and has to work very hard to breathe.

“Yunho-yah.” The shivery feeling is back at the base of Yunho’s spine. “Why are you wearing so many clothes?”

“I thought you were going to unwrap me,” Yunho manages finally, and whines when Changmin bends down to kiss him and do just that. The only thing Yunho is left in is the undershirt when Changmin is done, and the jeans still clinging to one ankle. It’s because Changmin isn’t willing to let Yunho have his mouth back, greedy and all consuming because it’s his twenty-seventh and he’s damn well allowed, if he wants to, even though it’s impossible for Yunho to take the shirt off over both their heads, and leaves him wearing it like a necklace. 

Not that Yunho minds.

He buries one hand in the hair at the base of Changmin’s dick, presses his thumb into the rapidly expanding flesh there on every other of Changmin’s exhales until the other man snarls into Yunho’s lips and pins Yunho to the bed with the whole of him. 

“Changminnie--” Yunho tries, and stops, because Changmin is rubbing over his mating mark again and nudging a thigh between Yunho’s so that he has something to work his dick against. “Oh--”

“It’s my birthday,” Changmin says breathlessly. “You’re going to fuck me first--”

Yunho whines at the thought of it, lost to the grind of Changmin’s thigh.

“But you’re not going to come in me--”

Yunho groans in protest but can’t find it in him to form words since Changmin’s left his hip and is instead tracing the swell of Yunho’s ass like he knows Yunho wants a finger yesterday. 

“And then I’m going to fuck you--”

Yunho’s pleasure-overrun hindbrain manages to produce the image of his brand new, purple butt plug and he nods along to Changmin’s ingenious suggestion. 

“And I’m going to knot you--”

Yunho’s breath stutters and his hips still when Changmin stops rolling his thigh into him and holds him by the hips, hard. His hole is practically weeping for it, clenching around nothing as Yunho shifts a little mindlessly on the bed.

“And _breed you_ \--”

Yunho’s mouth opens in soundless, beautiful despair and he turns his face away from Changmin’s voice like that’ll somehow make his words and how they make Yunho feel _go away_ \--

“And only then will you come,” Changmin finishes, and circles a hand around the base of Yunho’s dick like he’s psychic.

Yunho lies panting beneath him hips twitching and ass practically throbbing in time to his breaths. “Co-condoms,” he gets out in between gasps. 

He’s not in heat but sometimes Changmin gets weird and Yunho has to be sure, has to put the seeds of doubt into the mess so that his birthday plans don’t go completely to waste. 

“It’s my birthday,” Changmin says, still holding Yunho by the dick. “Now what are you waiting for?” 

Yunho forces his eyes open on a whine, before slapping a hand to Changmin’s ass somehow without thinking. Then he stops to just breathe. 

Changmin pulls his hand very slowly down and away from Yunho’s cock, drag torturous and just a hint too dry to feel all the way good. “Yunho-yah,” he says. “What have I told you about my ass?”

Yunho ducks his head almost embarrassed, and then shudders when Changmin presses a kiss to the top of his head. “That it isn’t non-existent?” he tries and laughs when Changmin growls at him and tries to flip him.

“Maybe I’ll eat you out first so that you’re suitably messy,” his other half says straightforwardly, making Yunho shake all over and his knees go even wobblier.

“That it isn’t self-lubing,” Yunho says desperately, and shoves a hand down so he can put an index finger into himself to the knuckle. 

The move makes him go nearly dizzy with pleasure, rounds his mouth into another soundless moan, and bows his back until he’s staring up at Changmin’s ceiling and realizing belatedly that they didn’t close Changmin’s blinds.

“Changminnie--”

Changmin scowls, pulls off of Yunho like he’s disappointed he’s missing the show, and goes in search for the remote control. “I’m going to need four fingers.”

Yunho scowls in what he hopes is Changmin’s general direction. “You are not,” he says.

“No,” Changmin agrees, overtop the sound of his automatic blinds sliding closed. “But are you really going to stop after three?”

Yunho works a second finger into himself on a whine and pointedly doesn’t respond.

Changmin takes that for the yes that it is and comes back around the bed to kneel over top Yunho, who stares up at him with his mouth open.

It’s really unfair how lovely he is, with his bruised-from-practice knees framing Yunho’s hips, and his beautiful, lovely cock curved up against Yunho’s abs. His knot is pink and expanding and making Yunho’s throat go dry, even as he whines and adds a third finger to the mix. “I can’t fit four,” he says, because his shoulder is starting to hurt from how he’s got his hand shoved underneath his back to reach, and his hips are starting to ache as he bends his knees to keep his back arched. 

Changmin settles both hands on Yunho’s hips to help, lifting him up a little to make the reach a little better, and breathing through his nose like a man possessed when he gets a front row seat to Yunho working himself open. “I’ve changed my mind,” he says breathlessly. “I’m going to fuck you first--”

“Changdol--” Yunho says, which isn’t agreement, but also isn’t much of anything. “We could--Kyungtae--” 

Changmin growls at him, manhandling Yunho around so that his fingers pull free and he moans, already aching for the loss. “Don’t talk about your dildo, Yunho-hyung.”

Yunho’s brain flits back to the sex toy hiding in Changmin’s bathroom before he can help himself.

Changmin shimmies down Yunho’s legs so that the head of his dick can nudge up against Yunho’s hole, then scowls when their legs end up keeping him from sliding home.

He hoists Yunho’s right leg over top his own, careful to press a thumb nail directly into Yunho’s mating mark the entire time, before shifting his hips and thrusting in to the hilt before Yunho can so much as open his mouth to moan about that. “Oh--Changdol--” he manages, back bowing. 

Changmin circles his dick in a too tight grip before he can so much as come. “Not yet,” he says breathlessly. He sounds about as put together as Yunho is, however, and his knot is practically pulsing in time with the beat of Yunho’s heart. “Not yet,” he says again, definitely to himself.

Yunho stares up at him and shifts his hips. “But Changminnie,” he starts to say breathlessly. “I thought you liked it when I come before you--”

Changmin’s eyes go glassy and he darts down to look at where they’re joined together. 

“I thought you liked it when you make me come again--”

Changmin’s grip on Yunho’s dick loosens, then tightens a little as he works his fingers over the base a few times, before his working his way down the rest of Yunho’s dick to worry over top the head.

“When you--” Yunho’s finding it very hard to form words, working his hips in circles against Changmin’s trying to get the man’s knot to catch and start to hold so that he can feel the sting and pull of it against his rim. “When you _make me_ \--”

Changmin’s throat bobs and he lets go of Yunho’s cock so that he can haul Yunho up for a kiss, heedless of the way the sudden movement tries to pull his dick free of Yunho.

“Changdol--” he manages, working to keep them together and snarling a little into the kiss. “Changdol--” When that doesn’t work, he grabs Changmin by the hair and tugs, pulling and shifting so that the younger man has Yunho caged in against the bed, panting. “I know it’s your birthday but could you act like you know what you’re doing--”

Changmin shifts and works his dick in deep before Yunho can finish his sentence, and at last his knot is expanding, pulling at Yunho’s rim and making him go even wetter and messier around the cock in him.

“Fuck--” Yunho breaks off around the swear. “Fuck--I love you--”

“You love my dick, more like--”

“Yes,” Yunho says, one hand cradling the back of Changmin’s head and the other down against his ass holding him there. “Yes--love it-- _please_ \--”

Changmin might be all snark but he’s as far gone as Yunho is, reduced to circling his hips because pulling free risks keeping them from knotting. “I love you, Yunho-yah,” Changmin grits out into Yunho’s neck, and Yunho hits a note he hadn’t thought possible outside of an audio program and comes so hard on Changmin’s knot that the thought of them ever separating is almost unbearable. 

Changmin stays in him for what feels like hours but is logically only fifteen minutes. They’ve standardized, apparently. Gotten knotting down to a science, so that ending up tied before a live show or a schedule is never an issue, and so that none of their managers end up scarred for life happening upon the two of them with their pants down, as it were.

Yunho still makes a face whenever Changmin softens and Changmin still smirks and goes to ease out of him. “Yunho-hyung--”

“I need to use the bathroom,” Yunho says desperately, the moment that Changmin is entirely pulled free of him. He gets to his somehow steady legs and books it into the place before Changmin can so much as finish his sentence. 

He turns the faucet on immediately and breathes deeply, heart pounding. The man in the mirror has flushed cheeks, pink, utterly disheveled hair, and livid looking bite marks lining the skin of his collarbones. If he wears a high collar, they’ll be out of sight; Changmin’s just that considerate. 

Yunho swallows. 

“Um,” he hears Changmin say from outside the bathroom. “Yunho? Hyung?”

Yunho keep staring at himself and breathing. “One minute!” he says. He should make it like he’s peeing, or something, but all he can do is white knuckle Changmin’s sink and stare at himself. His nipples are pebbling and his chest is heaving in a way that should make him embarrassed, but mostly just makes him jumpy.

“Are you okay?” Changmin says, seemingly in time with his own come leaking out of Yunho’s ass.

And that’s enough to set Yunho in action, has him lifting the butt plug off of the counter and running it under the water rather pointlessly for a few seconds, before dropping a hand down, shaking only slightly, to very gently press the thing into himself.

It feels. Weird. And hot. It makes Yunho’s knees go shaky.

The leaking stops.

Yunho’s traitorous cock twitches. 

He turns off the sink.

“You know I can tell you didn’t pee, Hyung,” Changmin says, in time for Yunho to push open the door and stare at him with probably too wide eyes.

His bangs are falling into his eyes.

He shoves them up out of his face.

People walk in butt plugs all the time.

Yunho will be fine.

He clicks Changmin’s bathroom light off, and steps nervously out of the bathroom into the office.

The plug shifts, rubbing what feels like right up against Yunho’s prostate.

His heart rate spikes again, and his fucking ass starts to get even wetter.

On the bed, Changmin’s eyes glisten.

Yunho swallows. “I lied,” he says slowly, crossing the office quickly without thinking about it, and padding through the glass doors into Changmin’s bedroom. “I was getting your present.”

Changmin is watching him from the bed lifted up on his elbows like some sort of predator, mouth parted and eyes following every single move Yunho makes. “I thought you were my present?”

Yunho closes his mouth, loses his nerve, and walks himself over to the bed, somehow gets into it, and pulls Changmin’s comforter over top himself. The plug grinds up against his prostate with every single movement and makes his mouth open and cock start to leak as well. 

Yunho stares at Changmin’s blinds and somehow manages to breathe. “Goodnight, Changdol,” he starts to say, at the same time Changmin puts a hand on his shoulder and tries to roll him around to face him.

When he does so, Yunho ends up on his back, the plug forced up against his prostate like the world’s worst surprise, and the noise he makes in response to it is downright embarrassing.

Changmin pulls back as if burned, clearly not having expected that, and Yunho manages to get himself off of his back and onto his right side with his eyes shut tight. He can feel tears in the corners of his eyes, a mix of nerves and pleasure and the smell of Changmin, still heady with arousal even as he rapidly cycles into concern.

“Yunho-hyung?”

Yunho cuts him off by grabbing him by the hand, eyes still tightly shut, and very gently and slowly pulls it down and around to rest on his own ass. “Happy birthday,” he manages.

Changmin is no doubt staring at him like he’s crazy, but after a pause, he tries to take his hand off of Yunho’s ass. “Hyung. You’re crying--”

Yunho tightens his grip on Changmin’s hand, opens his eyes, meet his eyes, and finally manages to get Changmin to put his fingers where he wants them. 

It’s like watching the world’s most beautiful sunset.

Changmin’s eyes widen and his fingers trace the base of the plug and Yunho lets go of him and stares at him and tries not to shake out of his skin.

“Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says, all reverent and like he can’t believe it.

“Happy birthday,” Yunho says again, and squeaks when Changmin hauls him close to kiss him. 

“I guess you’re not a technological failure after all,” Changmin says into his cheekbones, and pets Yunho at the base of the spine a few times when Yunho buries his face in between his collar bones and sobs out a laugh.

“No,” he says. 

Changmin grips Yunho by the ass cheek, and then takes hold of the plug between his index finger and thumb. “It occurs to me,” he says, just holding the base of it. “You can fuck me after all--” He gives the plug a twist, and then very gently shoves it up against Yunho’s prostate and kisses him on the head when he cries out in response. 

Yunho worms free of the man’s embrace to look up at him, almost dizzy with pleasure, but so in love with him he can hardly breathe. “You’re welcome,” he manages. “I am a genius--”

“It was my idea,” Changmin says, but kisses Yunho regardless.

Changmin’s twenty-seventh is glorious.

\--

Kyuhyun picks up on it first.

Changmin nearly takes his hand off in a friendly arm wrestle, and Suju’s maknae is pulling Yunho aside at a get together with an awkward slant to his mouth. They went home with Donghee-hyung after Beatles Code, tolerating arms around shoulders and gentle teasing for the fact that Yunho had once upon a time considered himself dominant, and for some reason Donghee-hyung had dragged them to Suju’s dorm instead of his own apartment. 

Minho showed up because he usually did when Kyuhyun and Changmin were in one room, and the combination of Yunho, Minho, and Siwon (who Yunho swore also did not live in the dorm) ended with them somehow arm wrestling to decide who go to drink the last bottle of cola. 

Which was when Kyuhyun lost, Changmin challenged Minho, and Yunho ended up standing in Super Junior’s kitchen blinking down at their maknae. “I’m sorry what?” he says.

“Are you due to go into heat, soon?’ Kyuhyun repeats, looking like this is the last conversation he’d like to be having. 

Yunho listens to his own maknae taunt Minho, and blinks. “Um,” he says. “I really don’t see how that’s any of your business, Kyuhyun-ah.”

Kyuhyun shuts his eyes briefly. “Look,” he says. “Yunho-hyung.”

Yunho lifts an eyebrow pointedly.

“Chwang loves you.”

Yunho nods.

“So that means by proxy, I love you too.”

“That’s… sweet, I think,” Yunho says finally. “Um.”

“But I can guarantee I have absolutely zero interest--” Kyuhyun breaks off abruptly looking guilty, and Yunho almost wants to smile at him to ease his obvious discomfort, but can’t bring himself to do so, because really, this is absolutely not a conversation he _ever_ wants to have with Kyuhyun.

Or anyone, for that matter.

“Listen, it doesn’t matter,” Kyuhyun says. “I think Chwang’s in rut.”

Yunho opens his mouth, then shuts it. 

Kyuhyun looks like he’s swallowed something irrecoverably sour. “Yeah.”

Yunho blinks a few times. “What?”

“I made a comment about your ass the other day and I thought he was going to kill me,” Kyuhyun explains, then looks very, very guilty.

Yunho snorts at him. “Kyuhyun-ah,” he says. “I’m flattered--”

“Ugh, no.” Kyuhyun frowns at him like Yunho is the sour thing. “No--Hyung--”

“Kyu-yah.” Changmin appears behind Kyuhyun like some sort of summoned demon, and Kyuhyun nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Jesus Christ, Chwang,” he swears. “Warn a man--”

“What are you doing?” Changmin continues, with a shrewd, piercing glance between Yunho and Kyuhyun.

Yunho considers their position--him standing pressed up against the fridge having left to grab some water, and Kyuhyun standing in front of him with seemingly every hair standing on end trying not to end up near Changmin’s clawing right hand. 

“Oh,” he says, nearly silently.

“Yeah, oh,” Kyuhyun agrees, then flinches when Changmin succeeds in palming him by the shoulder. 

“Talking to Kyuhyun,” Yunho says eventually, when it becomes clear that Changmin is not going to say anything else. “Changminnie--”

“You should talk to literally anyone else,” Changmin decides, still looking suspicious. It’s almost like whatever sour thing Kyuhyun swallowed transferred by touch.

Even though he looks supremely done with the fact that his best friend is trying to rip his shoulder off, Kyuhyun still stares up at Yunho pointedly, before nodding his head towards Changmin a few times as if to try to further get his point across.

“Changdol-ah--”

“You should talk to me,” Changmin decides, and lets go of Kyuhyun in favor of taking Yunho by the outstretched hand, and pulling him away from the kitchen and Kyuhyun with suddenly besotted, sparkling eyes. 

Yunho just follows after him with an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Changdol--”

Changmin keep his hand on the small of Yunho’s back, but whatever weird possessive monster that had inhabited him in the kitchen seems to die with arrival of Dognhee-hyung, back to tease them for their time on _Beatles Code_.

“Hyung,” Changmin says. “You’re going to make it obvious what we were talking about--”

“There’s no way they’ll air it,” Donghee-hyung says happily. “It’s too close to reality.” 

“Dominance has nothing to do with biology,” Yunho says pointedly, and shoves Changmin when the younger man grins at him. “Shut up.”

Donghee-hyung looks between the two of them with nostalgia lining his eyes, but also the glint of a new secret. 

Justifiably, Kyuhyun’s inquiry about Changmin gets lost in the press to get the details on the new lady in Shin Donghee’s life.

\--

At Music Bank the next day, Heechul-hyung interviews them. He visits them in the waiting room and takes a phone call the moment they start the interview, and Changmin is teasing and flirty and amusing with their audience of managers and the people Heechul-hyung’s brought to transcribe the interview.

Yunho sits on the chair they fetched for him and tries not to laugh too much like an idiot for the entire interview.

It’s only when Heechul-hyung brings up his girlfriend and that incident from the past that Changmin’s answers briefly go a little bit sharper and he sits up straighter on the couch.

Heechul-hyung handles Changmin with aplomb, but by the time the interview is over and their staff are comparing notes in the corner, Heechul-hyung is very quick to pull Yunho to the side with a frown.

“What’s wrong with your maknae?” the man asks. It’s a very carefully phrased question. Not ‘Changmin,’ because Yunho could answer as ‘Yunho, Changmin’s bandmate and coworker’. Not ‘Changminnie,’ because then Yunho could answer as ‘Yurobbong, Heechul-hyung’s dongsaeng and friend of more than ten years’. And not even ‘him,’ because then Yunho might feign ignorance. 

No, Heechul-hyung says ‘your maknae’ and Yunho needs to answer as the leader. As U Know Yunho. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” he says.

Heechul-hyung narrow his eyes at him, and then sets a hand directly across Yunho’s heart. 

“Changmin-oppa,” a stylist hisses from across the waiting room.

Yunho glances over and finds that Changmin’s gotten contour all along his cheekbone instead of underneath it and appears to be staring Heechul-hyung down like he’s going to commit murder instead of performing ‘Spellbound.’

Yunho’s mouth drops open.

“Did you keep him up all night?” Heechul-hyung is saying. “Because he’s extra prickly today. I know he’s never a cactus with you anymore, Yurobbong, but--”

“Hyung,” Yunho interrupts, not even worried about doing that much. “Hyung.”

Something of his panic must show in his voice, because Heechul-hyung starts to look a little worried. “Yunho?”

Yunho puts his hand over top Heechul-hyung’s on his chest, and then tugs the man a little closer. “After _Beatles Code_ yesterday, Kyuhyun was saying he thought Changminnie was in rut.” Yunho keeps his voice low enough that he knows nobody else can hear him, which only seems to make Changmin’s mouth downturn even more.

“Changmin-oppa,” the stylist scolds again, sounding done. “I need you to at least try to smile--”

Changmin tries to smile.

It’s terrifying. Yunho would love nothing more than to step far, far, far away from Heechul-hyung. He doesn’t. He just widens his eyes in something of a panic.

Heechul-hyung looks down at their hands, looks over at Changmin, and then opens his mouth and breathes. “Huh,” he says.

Changmin’s been shifted around so that they can fuss over the shoes the put him in for the interview and also the shoes they want them both on for Music Bank itself.

Yunho looks away from him quickly and at Heechul-hyung. “Good ‘huh’ or bad ‘huh’?”

Heechul-hyung darts a look down at their hands one more time, before dropping his hand to rest on Yunho’s right hip.

Yunho’s entire body shies away from the action, but Changmin’s reaction over across the room is explosive. 

The stylists helping him into the waistcoat all flinch, and Yunho finds himself backed all the way from Heechul-hyung before anyone can so much as start towards him with a flat iron or suspenders. 

“Kyuhyun was right,” Heechul-hyung informs him.

Yunho glowers at him. “Thanks, Hyung,” he says. “I hadn’t realized.”

Heechul-hyung just lifts both hands in surrender and lets his team herd him to safety outside their practice room.

“I hate that next year is their tenth year,” Changmin tells him darkly once they’re alone and Yunho has to stand still and let the stylists curl his hair. “I can’t kill him before their tenth year.”

Yunho closes his eyes and counts slowly back to ten.

“Also I hate these jeans--can’t we wear something loser for the next stage?” Changmin continues.

Yunho hits one and keeps going into negatives. “Changmin-ah,” he says. “You’d tell me if there was someone else, right?”

Changmin seems to freeze.

When Yunho peels his eyes open, his other half is staring at him (and also nervously looking down at his pants) with his mouth wide. “Yunho-hyung,” he manages.

“So no one, then,” Yunho determines finally. 

“Of course not.” Changmin sounds annoyed, but not enough that Yunho thinks he thinks Yunho’s serious. “Are you. Are you in heat--”

“Just because you’re gagging for it doesn’t mean I am,” Yunho says rather nonsensically, and pats Changmin helpfully on the back a few times before moving hastily across the room to hurry into his own costume. 

\--

“Yunho-yah,” says Yunho’s doctor, sounding like he’s about two seconds from shoving Yunho bodily back into the chair so that he stops pacing. “Please relax.”

“I’m probably overreacting,” Yunho says, unable to stop even if he wanted to for the man. “But it’s not supposed to work like that, right? Rut is supposed to be reactionary--heck, I mean, maybe Changmin walked by someone who smelled like me, but he swears he didn’t, he just woke up a little crankier than usual.” 

“Yunho-yah.”

“Maybe it’s because of Hyuntae,” Yunho continues, not even stopping to explain Hyuntae. “Changminnie’s been really messy lately and I’ve been indulging him so maybe we just brought it on by talking about it too much--” Messy meaning letting Changmin pin him to surfaces with the plug up his ass rambling on about how good Yunho was not to waste a single drop, and indulging meaning putting his head between his arms and sobbing through orgasm after orgasm at the mere thought--

Yunho breaks off abruptly face the color of a fire engine. 

“Yunho-yah.” His doctor’s patience sounds worn thin. “Please sit down.”

Yunho sits down, cowed, to go with his embarrassment. “Sorry.”

His doctor finally smiles. “Now,” the man says, consulting Yunho’s chart. “Have you been eating well?”

Yunho snorts. “Is that rhetorical?” 

His doctor doesn’t seem amused.

Yunho schools his features. “It’s promotion season,” he says. “And the tour is next month.”

That gets him an unimpressed look. “Have you been sleeping well?”

Yunho scoffs again. “It’s promotion season,” he says again. “The tour is next month. Listen, I’m sure it’s no big deal--I’m just here because I told Donghae and Donghae always panics--”

“Are you planning to have children?” his doctor continues, voice to the point, polite, and like knives straight through every pore of Yunho’s skin.

The conversation continues around Yunho, the manager who accompanied him jumping in when necessary, but Yunho operates on auto pilot for the rest of it. 

Then he doesn’t go home like he should after, and instead insists on heading to the SM offices, where he locks himself in a practice room to run ‘Spellbound’ until the sounds drown together, and he’s been at it so long that of course he’s having trouble seeing himself in the mirror because of all the sweat.

He stumbles, goes down with a sickening crack, and doesn’t realize that he’s crying until Hosik-hyung is storming into the room and Changmin shows up looking an absolute wreck to tell him off until they can clear him to go to the hospital for X-rays. 

Yunho stares up at a point to somewhere to the side of Changmin’s face and can’t seem to find his words.

\--

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /laughs nervously. Oops?
> 
> [Tumblr masterpost](http://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/175831576950/right-now-you-and-i-are-clumsy-but-youre) || [Twitter masterpost](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1017577163128786945)


	9. weep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why… no. This chapter isn’t called “Weep” for any particular reason at all. Why would you think that?
> 
> Betaed by Hexmen and Kinah. All other mistakes are my own. 
> 
> Vic was consulted in the name of poetry to which, I quote:
>
>> Vic: this is Beauty.  
> Vic: IT’S A FEELING.  
> Vic: IT’S DESCRIBING AN EMOTION.  
> me: YES.  
> me: YES.  
> me: Y E S.

**9\. Weep**

\--

According to his doctor, Yunho’s torn a lateral ligament and sprained his right ankle. His prognosis is good, but he’s not allowed to be on it for at least one full week, and two would be better. TVXQ has the Shilla festival on the 13th, _Music Bank_ on the 14th, and _Music Core_ on the 15th. They’ve already recorded _Inkigayo_ and their fanmeet for the 16th is just an album signing, but the tour is scheduled to kick off at the end of April.

At least one week of full bed rest is going to put quite a wrench in things.

“Two weeks would be best,” Doctor-nim says, but Yunho stopped listening somewhere around the news that they’d have to cancel their weekend music programs.

“We can do that,” Hosik-hyung says, mouth turned down. “You’re not due in Tokyo until the 25th for the fanmeets for _Tree_.”

“ _Tree_ ,” Yunho repeats. “We have VCR shoots.”

“You can just stand still,” Hosik-hyung says.

“You really shouldn’t stand period,” Doctor-nim interjects.

“That’ll be on the 29th,” Hosik-hyung explains. “Three weeks from now.”

Yunho’s doctor doesn’t so much as flinch. “You really shouldn’t stand,” he says again.

Yunho’s stomach turns itself in knots. He turns towards Hosik-hyung. “What about Shilla?”

His manager frowns even harder.

“We can do ballads,” says Changmin suddenly, breaking his silence. He’d been standing in the corner for most of the examination, allowed in by virtue of the mark on his ass and the frankly stubborn tilt to his jaw.

Yunho’d done his best to take his diagnosis with minimal wincing and absolutely no eye contact with Changmin, but now he looks over at him.

Changmin seems to take that as some sort of permission, and Yunho’s never hated his own biology more than now, when the moment the other man crosses the room to stand next to him and puts a hand on Yunho’s right knee Yunho feels tension go out of himself immediately.

He looks at Hosik-hyung for a distraction, and finds the man still frowning. “Ballads are fine,” he tries.

“We’re only doing ballads,” Changmin agrees, fingers surprisingly gentle against the bone of Yunho’s knee. “The fans will be fine with that--they love ballads.”

“You’re a dance group,” Hosik-hyung points out.

Changmin scowls. “We don’t really have a choice,” he counters. “Hyung.”

Hosik-hyung raises both hands in defense of himself.

Yunho shifts awkwardly on the bed. He can’t really move with his leg elevated on several pillows, but he wishes he was anywhere but here, honestly. His parents can’t get here until the weekend, but given the sudden emptiness of TVXQ’s schedule, Yunho has no doubt that come the end of the weekday on the 14th he’ll be waking to his mother’s disappointed face and an excess of coddling.

Yunho is _not_ looking forward to that.

It’s possible he’s scowling.

Changmin’s fingers tighten on his knee for barely a second. “Do we need to do more than ballads?” he asks. He’s not looking at Yunho, but when Yunho glances at him, he soothes both hands pointedly along Yunho’s right thigh.

Yunho blinks, embarrassed. “Changdol.”

Changmin finally turns to meet Yunho’s eyes, and he looks furious. There is salt clinging to his eyelashes and heat standing out on his cheekbones and Yunho looks at him and suddenly can’t breathe. Thank God Changmin’s been talking nonstop about the food trip he and Kyuhyun have been planning since their music program schedule for ‘Spellbound’ was finalized.

Yunho turns back towards Hosik-hyung.

His manager still looks somber. “Ballads could work…”

“They’re our fans,” Changmin says emphatically, still so beautifully blazing that Yunho can’t keep looking at him. “He’s hurt.” Changmin gestures towards Yunho with a full arm, so that Yunho doesn’t have to be looking to see. “They’ll understand.” And if not, _fuck them_ , goes unsaid but is heard by everyone in the room, including Yunho’s doctor, who lifts both hands when they all look at him. “Tell them,” Changmin says.

“Yunho-ssi should be on bed rest for at least one to two weeks,” the man repeats, starting to sound a little like a broken record. “You’re lucky it’s just a sprain--”

Hosik-hyung coughs loudly, suddenly, and crosses to set his knuckles pointedly into the wood of Yunho’s bedside. “You’re right, yes,” he says. “We’ll change the set list to ballads.”

Changmin makes a smug noise, and then turns back to Yunho with a smile.

Yunho’s stomach aches. “Changdol.”

Changmin’s hands pull off Yunho’s leg so fast Yunho almost gets whiplash following that action, and then his eyes go wide. “Shit, Hyung. Sorry. Are you okay--”

“No, just--” Yunho says, breaking off but risking a smile like some sort of Greek tragedy.

Changmin’s eyes dart around Yunho’s lower half. “Shit,” he says again. “I don’t mean-- I’m just worried-- I’m not mad at you--”

Yunho raises both eyebrows like he’s got both hands outstretched towards the sun.

Changmin’s eyes crinkle. “I’m only a little mad at you,” he amends. “But it’s only because I love you,” he manages to put in, mouth twisting unhappily. “I didn’t mean to make decisions for you.”

That hits too close to home, Changmin’s incredibly sweet emphasis on treating Yunho as more than his biology like knives under Yunho’s skin. The smile he manages feels full of holes and like melted, broken wax.

Changmin’s brow starts to furrow.

“What about a high touch?” Yunho says before anyone else can start to realize he’s about three seconds from a breakdown. “It’s not a lot of fans, right?”

“Eight-hundred,” Changmin mutters and Yunho elbows him. “Oof. A high touch would be nice.”

Hosik-hyung looks dubious. “Yunho-yah.”

“It’s not 2006,” Yunho snaps, going straight to the root of the issue before the conversation can drag out. “I’ll be fine.”

“It’d be pretty complicated to poison someone with a high five,” Changmin puts in helpfully, and normally Yunho would smile or feel buoyed, but at the moment all it does is make him feel even more like Icarus falling to his doom.

Changmin’s definitely noticing. “Hyung--”

“A high touch is fine,” Hosik-hyung says, picking up on the mood change as well. “And for the 16th you can just--”

“Sign albums as planned,” Yunho says. “And I won’t be dancing until April at the earliest.”

His doctor seems to startle when they all turn to him, but licks his lips to speak anyway. “You really shouldn’t be walking--”

“It’s promotion season,” Yunho says. “And the tour is next month.”

There’s a beat.

Déjà vu deafens the room.

Yunho’s doctor opens his mouth.

“I’ll come back next week,” Yunho hurries to add. “That should be fine, yes?” He’s looking at Hosik-hyung now. “My parents are coming to see me.”

His manager winces, and Changmin smirks.

“And they’ll probably feel better if I’m in the hospital getting the best care possible.”

“You just want to avoid the lashing your mom’s going to give you,” Changmin mutters.

Yunho isn’t above elbowing him in the side again.

Unfortunately, Changmin isn’t above stepping even closer and taking Yunho by the offensive arm, running fingers down to interlace with Yunho’s and having the audacity to do that eye crinkling, mismatched, sunshine smile thing again.

Yunho doesn’t pull away. “You can give me crutches,” he finishes with a winning, fake smile.

His doctor lifts one eyebrow but does seem to catch on. “I’m insisting on crutches,” he says. “And very limited walking.”

Changmin opens his mouth.

“You’re not allowed to carry him places,” Hosik-hyung puts in immediately. “Bridal carries actually make me less inclined to put in a good word with the higher ups about the two of you marrying each other.”

Changmin settles back down with a smirk.

Yunho’s stomach doesn’t know what to do with the sudden onslaught of emotion, so he just squeezes Changmin’s hand like a lifeline and smiles at the entire room.

\--

The fans think Changmin is adorable.

Yunho wants to strangle him, but they’re on camera and trying not to let it show that he’s probably not going to be all the way better for the tour.

It’s still an infinite relief to bow out of his apartment to spend the day with Dongho-hyung before the man’s enlistment, and to send Changmin to Sokcho with Kyuhyun with a wave, before rolling his eyes at his mother and checking himself into the orthopedics wing of the hospital.

Hojoon-hyung visits him on Monday after he’s checked in, mouth downturned, but rapidly picks up on how very much Yunho doesn’t want to talk about it and fills the silence with updates from the rest of 85line. “You want in on the bet?” he says.

Yunho lifts an eyebrow.

“How long Dongho-hyung’s going to last,” Hojoon-hyung explains. “If he’ll cry when we see him on the other side.”

“I’m going to cry when you see me on the other side,” Yunho says dryly.

“Yeah, but you’ll also have Changmin’s dick in you, and that really doesn’t count,” Hojoon-hyung says, voice equally dry.

Yunho’s cheeks go immediately flaming. “Hojoon-hyung!” he says, aghast.

Hojoon-hyung just grins, but humors Yunho to get up and close the hospital room door. “It’s nice that they got you your own room.”

“They don’t want it to get out that I’m here,” Yunho says. “The nurses.”

“You were charming them, weren’t you,” Hojoon-hyung says. “You’re lucky Changmin’s all the way in Sokcho.”

Yunho doesn’t rise to the bait. “I might ask to be moved,” he says mildly instead. “It’s boring being alone.”

Hojoon-hyung stares at him impassively but doesn’t call him on that lie either.

Yunho holds his ground. It’s nice to be alone and out of the spotlight. What isn’t nice is being left alone with his thoughts, which, shockingly, haven’t taken a turn for the better once he started being given pain killers and mandated bed rest. In fact, with all the time he spends lying alone in bed, Yunho has even more time to think about the fact that while the rest of the hospital is awash with the joy of heat season, Yunho is on the rapidly crashing train ride to early sterilization by way of being in one of the world’s biggest Korean acts.

It’s been great. The other day one of the patients in the room next to Yunho got a visit from his beautifully rutting wife, and Yunho got to roll over and stare at a wall until he wasn’t two seconds from crying anymore.

Hojoon-hyung crosses the room and sits directly in front of Yunho on the bed. “Yunho-yah.”

Yunho twitches a little. “Hojoon-hyung.”

“What really happened--”

Yunho is saved by the arrival of his parents, accompanied by a long-suffering looking Jaeyoung-hyung and thankfully sans Changmin. Jaeyoung-hyung hands off the bouquet of roses he’d been carrying, nods at Yunho, and then retreats back into the hallway to probably menace hospital staff about Yunho’s condition, and potentially report back to Changmin.

Yunho can’t quite keep himself from staring at the door for a while longer, not entirely convinced that his other half hasn’t ditched Kyuhyun in favor of hovering and ‘I told you so’s.

“I saw that,” Hojoon-hyung tells Yunho under his breath.

Yunho shoots him a funny look.

“You were worried he bailed on Kyuhyun and came back to hold your hand,” Hojoon-hyung explains.

Yunho blushes a little. “I was not.”

“You looked behind them,” his friend says but gets to his feet to smile and bow to Yunho’s parents regardless. “I’ll get it out of you eventually,” he says airily. “Jung-ssi,” he says to Yunho’s father, and then turns towards Yunho’s mother. “Yunho’s mother.”

Yunho’s parents return the bow.

Yunho’s mouth opens of his own volition. “The doctor said I won’t be able to have children if I keep this up,” he blurts.

There is deep, resounding silence from all involved.

Yunho leaves his mouth open for what feels like eons, before closing it on swears that would make even his Gwangju friends blush.

“I’ll leave you three alone,” Hojoon-hyung says finally, with one final bow and a mildly dirty look towards Yunho. He mimes ‘call me’ over his shoulder, and then is gone.

Yunho watches him go and wishes desperately for the ability to turn back time.

He turns to face his parents. “Mom,” he says. “Dad--”

His mother crosses the room with a smile pasted across her face to place her latest bouquet of flowers on his bedside. “All the hospital had was poppies and roses,” she says, mouth turned down. “Left over from Valentine’s Day probably.” She gives the bouquet a fluff. “It’s good I didn’t pick the poppies.”

Yunho barks out a startled laugh almost in sync with his father, who follows after his wife like he can’t quite believe himself. “Honey.”

“What?” Yunho’s mother lifts one drawn-on eyebrow.

“Nothing.” Yunho’s father positions himself opposite to her on Yunho’s other bedside.

She smiles.

Yunho looks between the two of them and feels like a million shattered pieces. “Mom,” he says again.

His mother goes back to flower arranging. “You must remember to water these,” she says. “Changmin will be back on Wednesday and I’m not above using him to get to you.”

Yunho winces before he can help himself, and his mother definitely picks up on that, but thankfully doesn’t say anything.

“It’ll give you something to do,” she says. “You’ll be on crutches until April, was it?”

“Mom,” Yunho tries one more time, then gives up when his mother simply stares at him with her eyebrow lifted again. “Yes,” he answers. “They want me to be as healed as possible for the tour.”

“The tour,” his mother parrots back, clearly displeased. She’s not really doing anything with the flowers beyond touching them, but she keeps up the pretense regardless.

“The tour is keeping me here until July,” Yunho points out. “And this--”

“There will still be parameters on travel,” his father points out suddenly. “Yunho-yah.”

“But not Changmin,” Yunho continues the conversation, ignoring them both. “Because he’s going early.”

His mother fingers a rose and sighs, a little breathy. “It’s so sweet of him.”

Yunho rolls his eyes automatically. “Overachieving,” he says.

“I thought it was a mutual decision,” his father points out.

Yunho risks a look at him and regrets it immediately; it seems nobody in his family believes the façade he has up.  “It was,” he concedes.

His father’s lips twitch.

“It’s still sweet,” his mother says.

Yunho leans back against his pillows. “Yes,” he admits, looking at his ceiling.

“Have you told him?”

When Yunho looks, his mother has gone back to fake arranging flowers, back straight, clothes neat as a pin, and hair impeccable as always. The only thing that gives her away is the slight shake to her hands, and the way Yunho can always tell when she’s focusing on him, although this time it’s not for any bad reason.

Well.

Not too bad of a reason.

“I’ll see him when he gets home,” he says instead.

“Yunho-yah.” His mother isn’t having any of it. She finally abandons the flowers and faces him head on.

Yunho looks her in the eye right back and tries not to start sweating out of his own skin. He shifts his feet on the bed, the elevated one in the cast practically like a living spotlight on his nerves, and twists his hands in the hospital blankets.

“Yunho-yah,” his father says suddenly. “Are you okay?”

Yunho turns to him, more than a little startled into honesty. “Honestly?” he says a little redundantly.

His father takes another step closer and nods.

Yunho’s throat bobs when he swallows. “No,” he says finally. “No, I’m--I’m not.”

His mother shifts to his left, but he doesn’t look away from his father.

“I didn’t mean to sprain something.”

He watches his father connect the dots. “Yunho-yah.”

“I just didn’t want to think about it,” Yunho says. “And dancing is like breathing, after a while.” He doesn’t say what time it was when he went to practice, when Changmin was pulled out of their bed to come tell him off and harass paramedics. He doesn’t tell them how the only person around to oversee his practice was Hosik-hyung, sent away to fetch him bubbling water from a vending machine on the floor above them. He doesn’t tell them anything.

His father reaches out to put a hand on Yunho’s gently trembling own. “Yunho-yah,” he says again.

“You said that already,” Yunho says. His voice is watery. He hates himself for it.

His father doesn’t so much as flinch. “You are no less my son for wanting children,” he says.

Yunho laughs before he can help himself, and finally pulls away from the man’s hands. “Right,” he says. “But what if I want them to be _mine_?” he says. “What if I want them to have to cut them out of me because fuck adaptation and Darwin?” he says.

His father still doesn’t flinch. “Nothing changes,” he says. He puts his hands back on top of Yunho’s and tightens his grip when Yunho startles.

Yunho stares back at him with his mouth open, heart pounding, ears ringing, and traitorous, terrible tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. “Appa,” he says. He doesn’t have any more words.

His father smooths a thumb over their clasped hands. “Have you told him?” he says, repeating Yunho’s mother’s words with somehow more gentleness.

Yunho chokes on a sob. “No,” he says. “No, I. I didn’t want to see his face.” _I didn’t know what to say_ , is what he means. _I didn’t know if I could stand to see him pity me_ , is what he means. _I love him more than anything and I’m going to make him choose between our dreams and our future_ , is what he means.

His throat is a mess.

From his other side, his mother makes herself known. “When is he due back in Seoul?”

Yunho takes the opportunity to look at her and blink the tears from his eyes before they can do something awful like fall. “Wednesday,” he says. “I told him to shower off the stink of good food before coming to see me, and to sleep off the Kyuline nonsense.”

His mother’s lips twitch. “I hope he’s eating well,” she says. “You’re both too skinny.” And then she leans in to pinch Yunho in the sides.

Yunho squawks, pulling away from his father’s hands and his mother’s fingers and throwing the sheets off in an attempt to get away from her. “Hey!”

His mother doesn’t let up until she’s contentedly felt up most of Yunho’s ribs.

“What if I’d fallen?” Yunho says sulkily once she’s retreated to a safer distance. “What if I was bruised?”

His mother isn’t fazed. “Didn’t you fall?”

Yunho flushes. “I stumbled,” he says with dignity, head held high.

“Mmm.”

Yunho looks at his father. “I’m actually very good at dancing,” he says.

His father’s lips twitch. “You were voted dancing king on that show, yes?”

Yunho blinks. “You saw that?” he says.

His father rocks back on his heels, pleased. “Of course.”

“Wow,” Yunho isn’t embarrassed to say. “Thank you.” The bow is something he can’t really help but do, and the lightness in his chest is from more than just the knowledge that his father doesn’t hate him for not continuing the tradition of alpha Jungs.

“Jihye showed us,” his mother puts in mildly, and Yunho’s father scowls

“Aish,” he says, frowning.

Yunho laughs before he can help himself. “Thank Jihye, then,” he says. “When you see her--”

“We’ll leave when Changmin gets back,” his father announces rather suddenly.

It throws Yunho, but it’s also clear that he hasn’t consulted Yunho’s mother, because she makes a startled face. Then the two of them appear to have a silent conversation with their eyes, before she nods. “Right,” she says. “When Changminnie gets back.”

Yunho looks between the two of them with narrowed eyes. “Speaking of Changminnie, are we like that?”

“Worse,” Jaeyoung-hyung says, letting himself back into the room with a smile. The noise of the hospital is startling for all of the two seconds it takes for the man to close the door behind himself again. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“No, you’re right,” Yunho’s mother says. “They are worse.”

Yunho feels himself blush. “You hardly see us--”

“I watch all of your interviews,” she says. “I’ve seen all of your performances so far--You are _besotted_ \--”

“I am not!” Yunho protests.

“Tap _dance_ ,” his parents chorus, emphases on the last word.

Yunho doesn’t even know what to say to that, so he settles for pulling the hospital blankets back over his stomach. “Whatever,” he says.

His mother reaches over to pinch him on one cheek.

“Mom!”

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” she decides. “When Changmin comes back, so try to have eyes for someone else--”

“Yes, I love you too, Mom,” Yunho says, pulling away from her hands. “Bye.”

His mother smiles at him one more time, before making her way towards the door.

His father follows her with a quick pat to Yunho’s shoulder, and a wink so fast Yunho swears he missed it. “I meant what I said earlier,” he says before he’s all the way out of the hospital room, which makes Jaeyoung-hyung lift a curious brow. Yunho ignores them both, just ducks his head and feels warmth spread all the way down to his toes.

When Changmin gets home on Wednesday and stops over after the nurses have finished leaking the information to the fans that Yunho is in the hospital (Jaeyoung-hyung gets to do even more menacing of the staff), Yunho’s mother comes into the room before Changmin can, to stroke careful fingers through Yunho’s hair and offer wise, sharp words.

“You know your father means well,” she says, because Yunho knew from the moment his father put a hand on Changmin’s shoulder that the two alphas were going to end up by a water fountain doing more than refilling Yunho’s water bottle. “But you know you needed to be the one to tell him.”

Yunho keeps his mouth shut and nods.

His mother keeps petting through his hair. “Changminnie loves you, Yunho-yah,” she says softly. “He’d never judge you.”

“Only for my wardrobe choices,” Yunho says finally, voice very, very raw. He fancies he can practically hear his father giving Changmin the dressing down of his life, even though they’re hallways away and not at all in hearing distance; he fancies he can smell Changmin’s mounting distress, even though the hospital practically stinks of disinfectant, and Changmin’s covered in ‘went on a trip with a celebrity and didn’t want to be noticed’ scent blockers.

“Yunho-yah,” his mother says. She’s still petting his hair.

“I know he loves me,” Yunho says, leaning into it. “He loves me enough to give me children.”

His mother pauses mid stroke.

“Or he would have,” Yunho continues, and buries his face in the pillow until his mother leaves to cut Changmin and his father off at the door, turning them both away with the steel will that Yunho is very rapidly starting to realize he most definitely inherited.

\--

Changmin sneaks back into in his hospital room that evening to climb into bed with him, and Yunho only realizes once he’s let his guard down and gone and embraced the man back, complete with a pleased hum and nuzzling into the exposed stretch of Changmin’s collarbones.

Yunho stiffens guiltily when notices what he’s doing, but Changmin just continues to arrange them so that they’re more optimally spooned in the too tiny hospital bed and smoothes his perfect palms along Yunho’s shoulder blades.

“So, I notice that I’m not the only one with an over-invested and supportive father, now,” he says pleasantly.

Yunho squirms and goes embarrassed and needs to flee the scene immediately. “Changdol.” His throat sounds like he’s had an oxygen tube or something.

Changmin ignores him. “It’s about time,” he says. “My mom wasn’t about to hang out with someone who thought her husband was somehow _lesser_ , and even my _dad_ was starting to be annoyed on my mom’s behalf.” When Yunho doesn’t try to interrupt him he continues, “You must admit you thought they’d get along.”

Yunho would, if he could speak. His heart is going in a way that would be concerning if they had him attached a monitor.

“I’m glad he’s come around, though,” Changmin continues saying. “And you must be too.”

“Changdol,” Yunho manages to say finally. “What--how--” He’s trying to ask how Changmin got in after hours, not why are you in my bed, but he feels like he’s failing. Maybe he can blame the state of his voice on lack of sleep.

“I owe Jooyoung-hyung our firstborn,” Changmin says immediately, and then goes perfectly, utterly still.

Yunho is extra happy that he’s not hooked up to a heart monitor. A heart attack would definitely be cause for alarm in a hospital. He swallows heavily and shifts around on the bed, nearly falling off the opposite side and shivering when Changmin tightens his grip around Yunho’s shoulders and keeps him from doing so.

Changmin swallows as well, curled around Yunho like a marsupial. “Fuck,” he swears quietly. “Fuck. Sorry, Yunho-hyung, I didn’t mean that.” He rests his forehead against Yunho’s chest and breathes.

Yunho sucks air into his lungs in one great gulp, and after a mild pause, places one considering hand atop Changmin’s head. “Changmin-ah,” he says quietly. “What did my dad say?”

“You’re a sorry excuse for an alpha and also I can’t believe I let my son as good as marry you?”

Yunho fists a hand in Changmin’s hair and growls.

“Ow, sorry, was that too caveman for you?” Changmin says quickly without moving. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to imply you were something to be transferred between family registers,” he says. “It’s generational.”

Yunho tightens his grip even more.

“Ow!” That gets him a reaction. Changmin plants his forehead more solidly into Yunho’s chest, reaches up to untangle Yunho’s fingers, and lifts his head angrily, blowing at the flyaway bangs falling into his eyes. He looks like a prickly, pissed off hedgehog, minus most of the spikes and plus a few streaks of pink across his cheeks.

In the dimly lit glow of the various hospital electronics--the bedside clock, the mounted television, an unused machine of some sort that Yunho is so glad he’s not hooked up to--he looks particularly livid.

Yunho swallows rapidly a few times.

Changmin tracks the movement of his throat like a man possessed. “Yunho-hyung.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Yunho says. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you--”

Changmin presses forward on the bed so that Yunho ends up sitting against the wall in order to escape him, Changmin doing a weird half kneel thing that can’t really be comfortable with how long both their legs are, and how Yunho’s right one is still elevated in the hospital sling. “Yunho-hyung,” says Changmin. “Is that really what you’re sorry for?”

“Should I be sorry for more things?” Yunho says. “I’m sorry my dad’s an archaic asshole who loves me?”

Changmin purses his lips and then darts in to breathe against Yunho’s collarbones some more. “Fucker,” he says. “I’m happy about your dad, honest.”

Yunho hates that the clothes they give you in hospitals are so thin and scratchy, but loves that the smells that permeate in hospitals are mostly cleanliness and disease, so the fact that his nipples are pebbling and his breath is catching is only apparent to Changmin because Changmin’s got his nose right next to Yunho’s clavicle. It makes him think back to September, and makes Yunho want to laugh.

He does a little, broken and horrible sounding.

Changmin pulls back with rapidly growing concern. “Yunho-hyung.”

“Look, Changdol, I’m sorry for everything, okay?” he says. “Isn’t that enough? I should have told you--”

Changmin leans in to kiss him quiet, but stops with his mouth hovering somewhere around Yunho’s like he’s asking for permission.

Yunho makes a tragic sounding noise of acquiescence, and the next few minutes are spent settling more solidly into the hospital bed, careful as ever of Yunho’s elevated leg, getting well and truly acquainted with each other’s lips and tongues. Yunho takes Changmin’s lower lip between his front teeth and nibbles, swallows the moan that gets him and lets his head drop all the way back so that he can bare his throat.

“You’re distracting me,” Changmin tells his mouth a few seconds later, drawn back just enough for them to take in desperately needed breaths of air. “You’re not sorry for more things?”

“I’m sorry I’m apparently not enough to distract you completely?” Yunho tries, shifting a little on the bed. He’s not all the way to aroused, but if Changmin wanted, if Changmin pressed his hips forward and reminded him just what he’s got going on down there, Yunho could be more than enough of the way.

“Mmm,” Changmin says, still not going back to kissing Yunho. “You’re not sorry for hurting yourself?”

That’s enough to give Yunho pause. He drops his chin down and purses his lips, which is a little ruined by how they’re just a touch swollen. “It was an accident,” he says.

Changmin’s mouth twists. “You should know better than to practice alone,” he says. “You’re human, Yunho-yah.”

Yunho scrapes the tip of his tongue along the backs of his teeth. “I wasn’t thinking,” he concedes. “And I don’t need to apologize to you for that--I think the fact that I’m trapped in a hospital for the next two days is penance enough.”

“You should apologize for scaring me to death,” Changmin says mildly. “Hosik-hyung isn’t very verbose when under stress.”

Yunho blinks. “What?”

“‘Will have to take Yunho to the hospital. Nobody is dying,’” Changmin says, clearly quoting. “I’m man enough to admit that I was not very dignified about receiving that.”

Yunho blinks some more. “Are you ever?” he starts to ask, then snorts through his nose when Changmin reaches down to tickle him in response.

“Mean,” he says. “I’m practically bearing my soul to you, and you’re making fun of me.”

That sobers Yunho considerably. “Sorry,” he says again. He’s starting to feel like that’s all he can say to Changmin, at this point. “Changdollie.”

Changmin leans in to peck him on the mouth one more time, this time without any pause to see if Yunho’s okay with that.

Yunho’s okay with that. Yunho hadn’t known how to finish that sentence.

Changmin pulls back. “Please stop apologizing,” he says. “I should be apologizing to you.”

Yunho’s throat clogs up. “Changdol.”

“Wasn’t that the point of setting your father on me?” Changmin continues quietly, not meeting Yunho’s eyes. “I’d barely so much as had a moment to myself since getting back and your father is _terrifying_ , Yunho-yah.”

Yunho doesn’t apologize again, but swallowing it down is more than a battle of wills. He ends up coughing a few times to clear his still-blocked-feeling throat and glowering at the smug look on Changmin’s face. “You’re cutting off my circulation,” he says.

Changmin’s face goes pleased, and in the next few minutes Yunho ends up the one curled up against the younger man’s chest; elevated, injured ankle still managing to be intact. Changmin’s breath rises and falls like the tide.

Yunho tries not to drown.

“You should have told me,” Changmin says quietly, finally arriving at the crux of the matter.

It’s too close to what Yunho’s mother had said what feels like only moments before but had really been hours, most of which Yunho spent hiding from the world and manager-hyungs alike, while his phone gently buzzed on his bedside table and Hojoon-hyung came back into the room to sit with him.

“Hey.” Changmin lets go of Yunho so that he can sit up and put them on more equal ground. “Hyung. Don’t do that.”

Yunho raises a brow.

“Wallow,” Changmin elaborates.

Yunho manages to meet his eyes. “Part of me wanted my dad to yell at you,” he says quietly.

Changmin taps him on the chin. “That’s unfair,” he says. “I can’t read your mind.”

Yunho lifts his head to look at him more fully. “Sometimes it feels like you can.”

“If you tell me you’re fine and to go on my trip with Kyuhyun, I’m going to believe you’re fine and go on my trip with Kyuhyun,” Changmin says easily, hand slid down to finger Yunho’s throat and shoulder.

Yunho curses hospital gowns and shudders. “When did you get to be so big?” he says helplessly.

Changmin doesn’t rise to the bait. “2006,” he says, tone still effortless. “Around the end of the tour. You all threw me a party--made me a cake and everything.”

Yunho swallows. “Oh yeah,” he says.

“Yeah,” Changmin replies, and as if Yunho hadn’t realized what he was talking about, drops his gaze down towards their lower halves.

Yunho reaches up to hold him by the wrist, scowling. “Pervert,” he says.

“You love it though,” Changmin says.

“Very much so,” Yunho whispers. “Changdol.”

“I’m not saying you need to tell me everything,” Changmin says suddenly, serious once more. “So don’t apologize for not telling me.”

Yunho worries his bottom lip.

“But please don’t lie to me,” Changmin finishes finally, breath a wisp. “Please don’t tell me you’re okay when you’re not, Yunho-hyung.”

Yunho latches onto the honorific like it’s CPR. “But I’m the hyung,” he says sadly. “I’m supposed to take care of you.”

Changmin doesn’t rise to the bait and play the alpha and omega card. “And I love you,” he says instead, voice beautifully, perfectly earnest. “Aren’t I allowed to take care of you too?”

Yunho takes Changmin’s hand, heart thudding in his chest and eyes going achy again. It seems he’s forever bound to be Icarus, flying too close to his own personal sun. Even though the fans think Changmin’s more the moon. Even though the fans think Yunho is the one who controls the sun. Changmin’s like warmth and affection and the only thing that keeps Yunho breathing and living.  

“Of course,” he gets out finally. “Changdol--” His throat is definitely clogged now, nose stuffing up preemptively like it can’t believe that after eleven years Yunho’s gone from ‘will cry when significantly happy enough read on tour’ to ‘will cry if Shim Changmin so much as sniffs at him.’ “Changdol,” he tries again.

Changmin reaches up to palm Yunho by the cheek. “Please don’t cry, Yunho-hyung,” he says heavily. “You’ll make me think you’ve been replaced by aliens.”

Yunho leans in to rest his forehead against the other man’s. “I’m going to break myself for TVXQ, Changdol-ah,” he says, voice barely a whisper. “How am I supposed to choose?”

Changmin makes a punched sounding noise and tightens his grip on Yunho’s cheek, pulls around so that he’s got an arm around Yunho’s neck and his cheek pressed to the crown of Yunho’s head.  “Yunho-yah.”

Yunho breathes him in like he’s a lifeline and shuts his eyes against the world. Then he releases, lets his shoulders fall back, and pulls himself back up to his almost full height. “I love you,” he says.

“I love you too,” Changmin says.

“Thank you,” Yunho says.

“You’re welcome,” Changmin says. “Yunho--”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Yunho says before he can finish. Changmin’s mouth snaps shut and Yunho feels so guilty he has to take a moment before continuing. “I--I won’t lie to you.”

Changmin’s mouth rounds out another gratitude and Yunho’s hands clench on the bed between them.

“But I--I’m not ready to talk about it…yet.” Yunho forces the final word of that sentence out somehow. He knows he’ll have to talk about it eventually. Maybe when the tour is closer. Maybe once he’s been set free of the hospital, and his parents aren’t two seconds from driving back to Seoul to murder the love of his life on his behalf. “But I won’t lie to you.”

“Yunho.”

Yunho tries a smile.

Changmin’s mouth seems to downturn even more.

Yunho settles more firmly back against his pillows. “Now can we…” He trails off, uncertain. “How long are you here…”

“All night,” Changmin says smugly, only a little subdued. “I owe Jooyoung-hyung our--uh.” He catches himself this time. “All of our tour earnings,” he finishes finally.

Yunho thinks about the ugly ball in the pit of his stomach and somehow manages to smile. “I hope you mean all of _your_ tour earnings,” he says dryly. “Haven’t you heard, Changminnie? That’s where all the money is.”

“I have heard, actually,” Changmin says, moving to lie down next to Yunho again with a yawn. “But also, you mated me.”

Those three words still have the ability to make Yunho’s heart skip a beat.

“There are no tour earnings that are just mine.”

“Fair,” Yunho says with dignity. “But as I wasn’t involved in this negotiation--”

Changmin shoves his face up into Yunho’s left side with an eye roll.

“--I demand cuddles as recompense.”

Changmin yawns into Yunho’s stomach but drops his arm across Yunho anyway. “Done,” he says.

Jooyoung-hyung will come collect Changmin at an ungodly hour so that the nurses don’t have more opportunity to gossip, and Yunho will be discharged and sent back to SM in preparation for their train trip two days later, but for the moment, Yunho just rests his hand on the small of Changmin’s back and tries to breathe.

\--

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~I’m sorry?~~
> 
>  
> 
> You can yell at me in the comments and release tension by hitting kudos or retweet? I am totallly going to start a '[please yell here'](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1019735143144181760) thread on Twitter fyi.
> 
> Also, look at [this edit](http://mobiledoll.tumblr.com/post/176037267119/it-seems-hes-forever-bound-to-be-icarus-flying). Is it not the most beautiful thing?
> 
> [Tumblr masterpost](http://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/176037303970/right-now-you-and-i-are-clumsy-but-youre) || [Twitter masterpost](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1019734775291105281)


	10. drench

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Hexmen and Kinah. All other mistakes are my own.

**10\. Drench**

\--

“I’m in heat,” Yunho says.

“Ha ha, April Fools,” Jooyoung-hyung says.

“No,” Yunho says. “I really fucking _am_ , Jooyoung-hyung.” He worries at his bottom lip and shifts awkwardly from foot to foot. Standing is preferable to sitting this early on, since standing keeps him from rocking into whatever he’s had the misfortune to sit on, and therefore keeps him from ruining his sweatpants entirely.

“Fuck,” Jooyoung-hyung says finally. “Fuck. The tour.”

“Is in twenty-one days,” Yunho says, aware his voice is rapidly descending into a whine. “But I--I mean, yay?”

He somehow manages to stop biting his bottom lip, which is a relief because he doesn’t want to bleed today. He tripped getting out of bed this morning once he realized that Changmin had vanished out of the apartment to probably restock their horribly empty refrigerator and banged up his left toe. No blood, but the scare had been enough to keep Yunho on his not so metaphorical toes. At least it hadn’t been the right one. Yunho’s been out of the cast since the _Tree_ album events in Osaka, but he really shouldn’t be pushing it at this point. Not with the tour in twenty-one days.

“Well, Changmin should be back soon--”

“Don’t tell Changmin,” Yunho blurts suddenly. That had been the point of the call. Normally Yunho would be ecstatic to be in heat. Certainly with the scare his body had given him the month before, the fact that his reproductive capabilities were still at full function should be a relief, but mostly, the thought of being stuck to Changmin for as long as it took for Yunho to stop gagging for it makes his heart ache.

Jooyoung-hyung pauses. “You know he’ll know immediately,” the man says.

“Jooyoung-hyung,” Yunho cajoles. “Please.”

Jooyoung-hyung keeps pausing. “He’s your mate, Yunho-yah. He’s the only thing that can make it break.”

Yunho’s fingers twitch reflexively in response. He left Kyungtae and Hyuntae at home in Seoul because even thinking about sex made him break out in hives. And also, it’s true. Changmin is the easiest and most obvious route to putting everything back to normal.

Too bad Yunho can’t so much as look in the mirror without feeling like a mess. “Please don’t tell him,” he says.

Jooyoung-hyung sighs. “Yunho-yah,” he says.

The doorknob turns.

“Shit, he’s home, I have to go,” Yunho says, and hangs up the phone in time for Changmin to finish unlocking the door to their Japanese apartment and come in bearing groceries.

“What smells so good?” he says before he’s finished taking off his shoes. “Did you finally figure out how to cook something edible?” He nudges his shoes into a line and strides past Yunho into the kitchen, back pocket chiming with a new unread text.

“Hey,” Yunho says, which is honestly a mistake because doing so has him opening his mouth and breathing Changmin in, which makes his body go into what feels like overdrive since Changmin is home and his mate and right. _Fucking. There._

“I’m surprised you managed to even find ingredients,” Changmin starts to say, setting the bag of groceries down with one hand and pulling out his phone with another. “We had basically nothing--you’re lucky nobody was expecting me this early at the store--fuck.” He stops talking rather abruptly.

Yunho has a sinking feeling that Jooyoung-hyung didn’t listen to him. Hell, Yunho comes to the sinking realization that Jooyoung-hyung never had an opportunity to agree to Yunho’s request.

When Changmin lifts his head, his eyes are wide, his pupils are blown, and his nostrils are flaring.

Yunho takes and involuntary step back.

Changmin grips his phone so hard it looks like it’ll snap.

Yunho smiles. “Um,” he says. “Surprise?”

Changmin takes his own involuntary step forwards. “Hyung.”

“It turns out I’m not actually infertile because of our schedules?” Yunho continues. “Which is good news, right?” He keeps stepping back like distance is going to make him stop needing to keep breathing and therefore keep smelling the effect he’s having on Changmin’s biology. Sweat has already started to gather in the backs of Yunho’s knees, and it’s not fun in the slightest.

Changmin shifts like he wants to keep coming after Yunho, but somehow manages to stop himself. “Yay,” he says finally.

“Yep,” Yunho says. “But I--” He breaks off, confused, and shakes his head. “Changminnie, I--”

Changmin stops moving very pointedly and then takes three steps back into their kitchen. “I get it,” he says quietly.

“Sorry,” Yunho says miserably. His hands are practically itching to move all the way across two rooms to grip at the front of Changmin’s shirt; his teeth are practically throbbing to move all the way across two rooms to mark up Changmin’s neck; and his asshole is definitely, definitely leaking for him to move all the way across two rooms so that he can get on Changmin’s dick. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Changmin says. His voice is very carefully controlled. “We’ve done this before, remember?”

“You’re not on pills,” Yunho whispers. “I… I’m sorry, Changminnie--”

“Don’t--” Changmin puts up a hand like listening to Yunho apologize is physically painful, and Yunho thinks back to how doting Changmin had been the year prior and swallows because it probably is. Every instinct in Changmin’s body is probably clamoring for him to cross the room and comfort Yunho.

Too bad Yunho’s terrible.

Too bad sex is the last thing Yunho wants to do right now.

“Don’t. Apologize,” Changmin finishes gritting out. “Gosh. Yunho-hyung.”

Yunho looks at him and realizes that not only has he been an uncommunicative asshole, but he’s also neglected Changmin himself. Changmin’s always been the scared one, stuck on the logistics of soulbonds and mating marks and worried from the moment he popped his first knot that he wasn’t going to be good enough for anyone, let alone Yunho himself.

And Yunho let him go off on a fucking food trip while Yunho spent a week in a hospital bed sobbing about the sacrifices made for fame, and then didn’t even have the courage to do more than set his father on him.

Yunho digs his nails into the center of his palms and hates himself.

“Yunho-hyung.” Changmin’s voice sound stretched utterly thin. “That’s unfair.”

That brings Yunho back and makes him startle, hands clenching in surprise. “Unfair?”

“I’m not angry at you anymore,” Changmin says. “I forgave you in the hospital room--”

“You’re always good to me, Changminnie,” Yunho gets out. “You’re always _too good_ to me--”

“Stop that,” Changmin’s voice is tight like a bowstring and the fact that he’s stayed all the way in the kitchen has to be a near Olympic feat. “I’m always as good to you as you’re good to me.”

Yunho swallows and keeps swallowing so that he doesn’t sob with it, and moves two paces closer like he can’t help himself. “Changdol--”

“Stop,” Changmin says again, one hand outstretched between them. “Stop--don’t come closer.”

Yunho freezes like Changmin’s commands are going to precede something even better, and whines once his brain picks up on how that’s what he’s doing. He hates biology.

Changmin doesn’t appear to be breathing, which can’t be good for his pre-tour health.

Yunho opens his mouth to comment, only by the time he gathers enough wit to even begin to locate his vocal cords, Changmin is exhaling in one great gust.

“Right,” he says. “I’m fine,” he says. “But cuddling is off the table for today.”

Yunho’s mouth whines before he can stop himself.

Changmin shuts his eyes and swears, hand still between them. His eyes open with the pupils covering most of his irises and he blinks a few times. “Sorry,” he says. “I’m not on pills.”

It takes Yunho an embarrassing number of seconds to realize that Changmin is blinking down at his own dick, hard and interested and pressing up against the zip of his jeans in a way that looks positively painful. Yunho’s mouth rounds in response. “Oh,” he says. “Right.”

Changmin’s throat makes a tragic noise and he backs up again. “Sorry,” he says again. “And it’s fine. We did this before. It was fine.”

Yunho finds he can’t look away from the front of Changmin’s pants, now that he’s turned his attention away from the man’s face. It’s fine. Changmin’s pheromones are telling him more than his eyes ever could, and foremost they’re telling Yunho to get naked and on his belly immediately. “It wasn’t fine, though,” he says. “You had to get me Kyungtae.”

Changmin chokes on his own breath.

“And my heat only broke because Donghae took me away from you.”

“Fuck Donghae,” Changmin snaps, and then seems to regret his words immediately. “Fuck,” he says again. “Sorry. Yunho-hyung--”

Yunho finds he’s stepped towards Changmin and the kitchen automatically, but he manages to grind himself to a stop before he does something stupid like try to mount the man. He doesn’t want it like this. Not when everything is still too raw. Not when it’s all he can think about how this could be the last one, given their schedules and the loom of their enlistment next year. SM and Avex will want albums and tours for both countries by the end of 2018, and by the time he and Changmin are finished appeasing them and their dreams, children who look and breathe like a mix of them could be well and truly out of the picture.

Which is enough to stop Yunho from throwing his higher functions into a meat grinder and has him backing away to put their couch between the two of them.

“That’s good,” Changmin says. “Although--” His eyes are stuck on the couch like he’s remembering the last time they were in this apartment in December, and how Kyungjae-hyung threatened to resign early because neither of them could wait until he was gone before they were making out on that very sofa.

Yunho yelps and sidesteps the couch to stand next their flat screen instead.

“Right,” Changmin says. His voice is like a hole-filled hot air balloon, and all Yunho wants to do is try to patch it.

“Anyway,” Yunho says. “You were saying?”

“We’ve done this before,” Changmin replies, clearly glad for the reminder. “We’ll be fine. We can do four days--”

“But--Kyungtae--and--Donghae--”

“I’m not calling Donghae-hyung.” Changmin appears to have relocated his manners. “And I’ll just get you another one.”

Yunho opens his mouth, then closes it. He frowns. “Another what?”

“Dildo,” Changmin forces past his teeth. “I’ll go get you another dildo. Japan has 7-Eleven.”

“You hate Kyungtae, though,” Yunho can’t help but point out. “For some reason you’re irrationally jealous of Kyungtae--”

“If you didn’t like to get drunk and devote karaoke sessions to it I wouldn’t have to be,” Changmin mutters darkly.

“It’s not my fault Kyungtae has literally never let me down--”

“I was worried you weren’t the one for me!” Changmin snaps. “I was worried that I was too much of an asshole in my very short life that there was no way someone like you could be made for me!”

Yunho stares at him with his mouth open, wind well and truly taken out of his sails. “Well,” he says. “Ditto.”

Changmin steps towards him with a growl.

Yunho backs up until he hits the wall with a squeak.

Changmin stops.

Yunho stops.

The clock in their apartment ticks on.

Changmin swears. “Shit, Hyung,” he says. “I need to change pants.”

Yunho doesn’t look down at Changmin’s dick again, but instead turns his attention to his own sweatpants. “Me too,” he says. “I’m disgusting.”

Changmin makes a noise that is a cross between a sob and a moan and then looks like he’d like to shove his entire fist into his mouth to keep from doing it again. “I’m going to get you a dildo,” he decides. “They always said that good things come in threes.”

Yunho has to give him that. “Right,” he says. “Sure. Only. Can you kiss me first?” He puts both hands over his mouth after he’s spoken but the damage is already done.

Changmin shuts both eyes and turns his face to their kitchen ceiling. “Yunho-hyung?” he asks.

“Yes?” Yunho says, not because he’s in heat and Changmin asked him, but because Changmin’s eyes are closed and he can’t see if Yunho nods.

“I need you to go to your room and lock the door,” Changmin finishes.

Yunho starts to walk before thinking, then stops. “I don’t have a lock,” he says. “We got rid of them when we basically got married--”

Changmin makes that sob-moan noise again and shouts, “Just go to your room, Yunho-yah!” and Yunho finds himself behind his own closed door before he can so much as finish reacting to that.

It’s possible that he’s come untouched.

It’s likely that he’s bitten through his own tongue.

His boxers are beyond salvation at this point.

“Fuck,” Yunho says.

\--

“Donghae-yah,” Yunho says. It’s been four days. He feels like he’s dying. Nobody has seen him or Changmin together for the entire period--not even Sungchang-hyung, and that’s saying something because their schedules roll on and they’re starting to run out of ways to prep for the tour without both of them present. Yunho’s been able to give the excuse of resting his ankle, but even that’s starting to raise eyebrows at this point.

Every single meal is spent sitting on opposite sides of the kitchen trying not make eye contact with each other, because even though Changmin’s rut is dependent on Yunho’s heat and he’d be fine if he went and got a hotel room for the extent of it, the mark on his ass refuses to let him leave Yunho.

He told Yunho all about it on the second day, trapped outside their bathroom while Yunho brushed his teeth for what felt like hours. It was irrational and hilarious and Yunho wanted to make fun of him for it, since there was absolutely no way that any one of his alpha friends was going to hop on a plane to come take advantage of Changmin’s absence.

But on the other hand, Yunho had been seriously considering using Changmin’s toothbrush for something other than dental hygiene, so he hadn’t done more than digest the man’s words.

Calling Donghae on what Yunho has very quickly realized is Hyukjae’s twenty-ninth birthday is what four days of heat will do to you.

“Yunho-hyung,” Donghae says. “I’m kind of busy right now.”

“Are you sitting on Hyukjae’s dick?” Yunho says. “Because I’m not sitting on Changminnie’s dick because I had an emotional breakdown last month and sprained my ankle because it’s likely that my career choice is going to keep me from having children.”

There is an incredibly long, awkward pause.

“No,” Donghae says finally. “But I am in the car with Hyukjae’s family, and you are on speaker phone, because the car has Bluetooth and I forgot to turn mine off.”

There is another incredibly long, awkward pause.

“Which one is that again?” a woman who sounds painfully like Hyukjae’s mother says. “Yunho-yah?”

“Hyukjae’s Eomeo-nim!” Yunho says in an incredibly high voice. “Congratulations! I’m so sorry!”

“Congratulations?” Hyukjae says in the background. “Was I supposed to not live to thirty or something?”

Donghae clears his throat. “I’ll call you back when we get back to the dorm, Hyung,” he tells Yunho blessedly, but he sounds amused so Yunho can’t forgive him for answering to begin with. “Bye--don’t hurt yourself--”

“I hate you,” Yunho tells him miserably, and drops his phone onto the bed beside him. He stares up at the ceiling for a few moments. He kicks the sheets off himself after a few more moments. He sighs.

 _Don’t call me, actually_ , he texts Donghae eventually. _I give up. I’m just going to let Changminnie fuck me because otherwise I think I’m going to die of dehydration._

There is another pause, because apparently Yunho has never heard of the rule of threes.

 _Yunho-yah,_ someone who looks very much like Park Jungsoo has written. _You realize this is the DongBangSuju group chat, yes?_

Yunho hadn’t realized that.

Yunho decides to go and drown himself in the shower.

\--

Crying on his ass in the middle of his shower because he dropped the shampoo bottle is probably very high on the list of embarrassing things Yunho has done in his twenty-nine years, but given that confessing to wanting Changmin’s dick to Lee Hyukjae’s very lovely family and also the entirety of Super Junior is _also_ on that list, and that Yunho did both of those things not hours before his accident with the shampoo, Yunho think it’s fine that he’s spending the seventy-somethingth hour of his heat crying on his ass in the middle of a shower.

“Fucking fuck shit,” he says in between snot bubbles, and lets the shampoo bottle thud in the tub beside him. “I hate _everything_.”

He’s just started to see the bright side of things, namely the fact that he doesn’t have to expend quite so much energy to wash the suds out of his hair, when Changmin comes scrambling into the room that Yunho swore he locked wearing nothing but loose, ratty sweatpants and sweating like he’s been working out.

Yunho thinks back to the man’s very loud Japanese rock music and realizes that the counting probably _was_ working out.

Certainly, Changmin’s abs are practically dripping.

Yunho’s mouth waters.

Yunho’s eyes water.

He throws his head back and sighs. “Fuck,” he says again. “Changdol.”

“I checked my phone,” Changmin says. “I’ll kill them all. Are you okay?”

Yunho hadn’t stuck around in the DongBangSuju group chat to see what it was their oldest company mates were saying, but now he’s almost curious. “Changminnie-yah,” he says.

Changmin steps closer to the shower and shoves his phone into pocket. He’s got headphones dangling from his ears--was probably listening to even more music overtop _X Japan_ in order to further drown out the sounds of Yunho’s suffering.

Yunho stares at him until the younger man pockets those as well, and then laughs very much like a mad man. “Déjà fucking vu,” he says in a mix of French and English.

Changmin’s throat bobs.

Yunho stares at him in consideration. “Oh yeah,” he says. “You like it when I talk like I didn’t go to college.”

“Like where you come from,” Changmin corrects. “Hyung--”

“Well.” Yunho lifts a hand. “What are you waiting for?”

And Changmin is stripped out of the sweatpants and standing over him in seconds flat, chest rising and falling like he’s still mid workout, and beautiful alpha cock curved up towards his washboard abs.

Yunho stares up at him like a man freed from the desert.

“Yunho-hyung.” Changmin says. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Yunho says straightforwardly. When that appears to make Changmin startle, he laughs. “What, I thought you said you didn’t want me to lie to you?”

Changmin’s hackles seem to rise. “Yunho-hyung.”

“Sorry,” Yunho whispers. He tries to get his legs to unbend so that he can get to his feet. “Sorry, Changminnie--”

Changmin reaches out a hand to steady him once Yunho is standing in front of him in the shower. The water washes around them in a steady, icy stream.

Changmin quirks his mouth. “Heat is bad for the water bill,” he determines.

Yunho hates how in sync they are.

Changmin swears, picking up on that. “Yunho-hyung.” He looks like he wants to hold Yunho’s hand or something, then seems to realize that he’s still holding Yunho’s arm and moves to pull back.

Yunho starts to trip before he can so much as finish the motion, and they end up staring at each other in between water droplets connected by Changmin’s right hand.

“Fuck,” they say in synchrony.

Changmin laughs first.

Yunho laughs second.

Then Changmin finally lets go of Yunho’s arm and Yunho manages to stand on his own.

“Why… why aren’t you okay?” Changmin asks finally. His voice is suddenly very shy.

Yunho curls his toes against the base of their bathtub. “You had a rut last month,” he says.

Changmin’s shoulders lock a little. “Yeah.”

“Without me.”

Changmin’s brows pull a bit. “Yeah.”

“My doctor said it was stress,” Yunho says. “Not eating. Not sleeping. Keeping bad hours.”

Changmin swallows. “Being in TVXQ, essentially,” he breathes.

“Yeah,” Yunho says. He rubs at the back of his neck. Logically he knows it’s Changmin that’s made him stop feeling ready to climb the walls and not the shower, but he can already feel the positive association forming in the back of his hindbrain. There’s a reason that eating Changmin out reminds him a lot of mating, and it’s definitely Pavlovian in nature.

“Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says.

“I feel selfish,” Yunho tells the freckle on Changmin’s right ear. “I’ve been to orphanages. In Africa--”

Changmin leans in so slowly that Yunho can hardly think, and stops with their mouths a hair apart. “Yunho-yah?”

“Mm?”

“Can I--”

Yunho’s nodding and leaning in before Changmin so much as finishes the question. The kiss feels like coming home. Changmin puts his hand on the nape of Yunho’s neck and steps in close enough for their toes to brush. He licks into Yunho’s mouth like he’s been as starving for it as Yunho has been and slides a hand down to palm Yunho’s dick like he hasn’t even thought about it.

Yunho startles, fucks into the calluses of Changmin’s hand, and when Changmin tries to pull back like he’s sorry, follows after him with his cheeks hollowed.

Orgasm number one with Changmin is lovely, makes Yunho’s eyes roll back in his head and has him breaking out of the kiss to just pant up against Changmin’s cheek while the younger man works him through it. “Fuck. Changdol--”

“You needed that,” Changmin determines, clearly right back into rut-space.

Yunho makes a whining noise and nods in agreement. “Fuck,” he says again. “Changdol.”

“That wouldn’t help you, though,” Changmin says. His fingers are working along the base of Yunho’s cock in a way that somehow manages to bridge the line between too much and just right. “I need to fuck you.”

“Yes,” Yunho manages, voice a wreck already. “Yes--Changdol--”

Changmin shudders through it, thumbs over Yunho’s cockhead a few more times, and then pulls away from Yunho with iron control. “Fuck,” he’s the one swearing now. “Sorry.”

Yunho hates that he’s sorry for making him see stars.

“You were saying?”

Yunho doesn’t know if he wants to keep talking about it, but he has a feeling if he tries to get out of it yet again, Changmin might wait until he’s got his dick stuck in Yunho and Yunho can’t go anywhere. He swallows. “I’m a mess, Changminnie.”

Changmin lets out a breath. “Well then,” he says. “Our shower is clearly broken.”

Yunho barks out a surprised laugh.

“So we should get out of it--” Changmin continues, wrapping a hand around Yunho’s waist and hoisting him up.

“Wait--Changdol!” Yunho protests, because it’s slippery, but Changmin somehow manages to manhandle Yunho out of the water and turn it off with one hand each.

Yunho’s heart is going a mile a minute. “Never mind,” he says.

“You really need to eat more,” Changmin frowns. “I mean--”

Yunho leans in to kiss him. “It’s fine, Changdol,” he says.

Changmin scowls at him but lets Yunho lower his legs down onto the ground beside him. There’s barely enough room for the both of them on their bathmat, but Yunho manages it anyway, shivering a little from the cold of the room, and a lot from not being able to touch every part of Changmin anymore.

Changmin kisses him almost in annoyance at that fact. “It’s not fine.”

Yunho pulls back. “It is,” he says. “I love TVXQ so much, Changminnie.”

Changmin looks at him like his heart is breaking. “I know you do,” he says.

Yunho frowns. “And you do as well, yes?”

Changmin shakes his head. “You sound like our fans,” he says.

Yunho keeps frowning.

Changmin reaches out to grab the towel he put on the rack this morning and throws it over Yunho’s shoulders. “Yes, Hyung,” he says. “There’s nothing I would want more than to be in TVXQ with you.”

Yunho has a feeling that Changmin didn’t just stick that ending qualifier on there for nothing, but if he tries to ask after it or talk about it, he might start crying again. He settles for gripping the towel with both hands underneath his chin.

Changmin has to crane around to get his own towel, and the pull of his underarm muscles makes Yunho nearly lose grip on his towel and sanity, so he drags the thing down to his legs to try to get himself a little bit dry, and tries to leave the bathroom.

“Yeah, you’re not ruining my floors,” Changmin says from behind him, and catches Yunho around the waist before he can get through the threshold.

It tickles, Yunho cackles, and Changmin dries him with fingers that feel far too ghosting to be a coincidence.

Yunho takes it with shaking shoulders and sighs, leaning back into Changmin’s embrace once the other man reaches his cock. “Changminnie?”

Changmin’s mumbling as well.

“I want four today,” Yunho decides, sighing again when Changmin circles his dick immediately.

“Four?” He says, leaving off his pinky purposefully like he doesn’t know what Yunho’s talking about.

Yunho glowers down at him and scowls. “You look like a fake nobleman,” he says.

Changmin fists Yunho’s dick more seriously. “Four seems like a lot,” he says. “That’s very greedy of you.”

Yunho rolls his head back against Changmin’s shoulder and thrusts his hips pointedly forward. “Yeah, well,” he says. “You’re going to give me them anyway.”

He can feel Changmin swallow behind him, but mostly he’s focused on the slide of Changmin’s hand against him, skin drying in the air-conditioning of their apartment and not really affording nearly enough glide for the hand job to be all the way pleasurable. Not that Yunho cares, at this point, four days into heat and practically gagging for it.

“Why are you making that face?”

Yunho hadn’t realized that Changmin could see his face. “What face?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” says Changmin, letting go of Yunho’s dick and dragging his hand across his hip bone.

“No, please--” Yunho tries to protest, at the same time Changmin gets his hand all up into the pool of slick gathering in the crack of Yunho’s ass.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Changmin says again, stroking an index finger there.

Yunho stares up at the ceiling and wonders how his life came to this. “The angle--” he tries to protest at the same time Changmin curls the top digit of a finger into him. “The angle is bad--”

“I know,” Changmin breathes, and seems to finish feeling Yunho up so quickly Yunho’s head spins. He’s gripping Yunho by the cock again, grip significantly wetter, and Yunho opens his mouth and wails, utterly, utterly gone. “You’ve messed up my walls, now,” Changmin says. “Maybe we should get back in the shower.”

Yunho can’t find it in him to try to open his eyes to see if he has in fact painted the walls. “Or you could finish what you started and put me in your bed and give me two more orgasms,” he says.

Changmin’s breath catches somewhere near his left ear. “You raise a good point,” he says, and lets go of Yunho’s dick.

Yunho’s not sure how they make it to Changmin’s bed. Changmin’s laptop is still blaring rock music but it gets not so gently shoved onto the carpet and shut with a foot so that the music stops before Changmin has finished shoving _Yunho_ down onto his bare sheets.

They’re basically conjoined at the mouth at this point, because now that Yunho is letting himself have this, he can’t get enough of it. Every time he kisses Changmin he gets to taste Changmin, and every lick of Changmin’s tongue against the roof of his mouth has his ass practically weeping for it, and leaves Changmin snarling nonsense into the seal of their lips like a slave to his instincts.

It makes getting onto the bed hard but speaking even worse.

“Where’s your blanket?” Yunho’s not even sure if he’s forming proper words.  

“Floor somewhere.” Changmin’s definitely not forming proper words.

“Where are the condoms?”

“Bedside table.”

“Alpha has to go get them.”

“You absolute fucker--”

“An absolute fucker who wants you to absolutely fuck me,” Yunho says, and sets his fingers into the center of Changmin’s lips and leaves them there for two seconds. “Now fetch.”

“Fucker,” Changmin grumbles, but goes to do just that.

Yunho settles himself back against Changmin’s pillows and reaches down to jerk himself off a few times, snarling when that doesn’t help matters, and continuing down his body to shove two fingers into himself without so much as a pause.

Changmin nearly slams his hand in the drawer in his haste to get back to Yunho with the condom packets, and spills a few of them across the bed before he reaches him.

Yunho stares back at him with his eyes glassy and tries not to rub over his prostate too obviously.

“Oops,” he says, voice all air. “I guess I am a fucker after all.”

Changmin scowls, snarls, and rips open the condom.

Yunho watches him roll the thing on over the pulse of his knot with half lidded eyes, and doesn’t pull his fingers out of himself until Changmin is looming over him with his teeth showing.

“Yunho-hyung,” he says, and snarls a little when Yunho just keeps pressing up against his prostate. “Do you want my knot or not?’

“Yes, yes, yes,” Yunho blurts desperately, pulling out of himself immediately and hitching his hips up. “Please, Changdol, please, please, please--”

Changmin thrusts in the middle of the word’s final consonant and Yunho’s back bows into it, head thrown back against the pillow and still dripping fingers raking along Changmin’s shoulders and biceps.

“Fuck,” he swears. “Fuck--please--Changdol--”

Changmin snarls some more, hips fucking in more solidly, and Yunho goes up the bed a little under the ferocity of it. “Yes--” he says, voice deep and raw and absolutely unfair. “Mine--Yunho--”

“Yours,” Yunho agrees, lost to it. “Yours. Changdol--”

Changmin in rut is a renaissance painting. His skin is flushed, his eyes are huge, his mouth is red, and he fucks Yunho like every second could be the last one, until Yunho is shoved right up to the headboard and he can already feel bruises starting high on his hip bones.

He puts a hand down on Changmin’s ass to soothe him, then breaks off in a yelp when Changmin rounds his own thumb down onto Yunho’s bite mark in revenge for it. It’s possible that Changmin’s going to be smarting whenever he has to sit for a few days after this, and Yunho might have to do a late night run for some hydrogen peroxide to treat the scratches he’s leaving on Changmin’s left ass cheek, but he doesn’t really care, because Changmin has lunged forward to set his teeth into Yunho’s left pectoral and Yunho is over the edge before he’s so much as managed to figure out that his other half is mumbling ‘I love you’s’ into the skin by his nipple.

It has to be one of the best orgasms of Yunho’s life, which is both saying something given he has Shim Choikang Sex on Legs Changmin pretty much whenever he wants, and also the last best orgasm of his life was minutes before in a bathroom with Shim Choikang Sex on Legs Changmin as well.

“You’ve ruined me for anyone else,” Yunho says raspily, once he feels like he’ll be able to keep breathing autonomously. “Seriously. Even if I could manage to stop wanting you, nobody else could compare.”

“Mmm,” Changmin says. He hasn’t knotted yet, but his dick practically expands in pleased response to that. “You should write a song about that.”

Yunho pouts a little. “Changdollie,” he says. “All my songs about you are wholesome and feature children’s choirs.”

Changmin barks out a laugh. “Right. Isn’t that because you want me to give you children, though?”

There’s a pause.

Yunho continues to keep breathing.

Changmin seems to finally come back to himself. “Oh fuck,” he says. “Fuck. Sorry. Yunho-hyung--”

“Changmin-ah.” Yunho works himself into a seating position with Changmin’s dick still inside him. “Stop apologizing.”

Changmin’s cheeks are blushing.

“It’s honestly nice to know that you get crazy in rut too,” Yunho finishes.

Changmin narrows his eyes at him. “Yunho-yah.”

“What’s that, Changdol?” Yunho says. “You don’t want to _breed_ me--”

Changmin snaps his teeth at him and then leans in to kiss him like he owns him. “Stop talking, Yunho-yah,” he growls. “I thought you said you wanted four?”

Yunho blinks up at him and finds it very hard to breathe. “I did.”

Changmin kisses him one more time in a way that feels more like a bite than anything. “Keep that up and you’re going to get at least _six--_ ”

Yunho perks right up.

“Not six,” Changmin amends immediately. “I forgot that you’d like that--”

“Six should be for next time,” Yunho says happily. “Four’s good for now--Sungchang-hyung might kill us if we ditch practice one more time and I want to see how my leg likes Yokohama Arena.”

“Yunho--”

“Next time you can give me six,” Yunho decides, and then stops. Realization is a tough pill to swallow; reality is quite a ways to fall down. “Oh,” he says. He’s not feeling very bubbly about everything anymore.

Changmin stops moving inside of him. “Yunho-hyung,” he says softly.

Yunho looks at him because he can’t not look at him.

The other man is looking at him like Yunho is the sun and _Changmin_ is the one who made himself wings to fly close and isn’t that unfair? That Yunho gets that--gets Changmin--and they’re going to sell out entire arenas doing the thing they love most in the world, at the price of maybe the future.

“I love you,” says Changmin, holding Yunho by both cheeks suddenly. “I’m in love with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” He strokes his thumbs along Yunho’s cheekbones after every sentence. “That doesn’t have anything to do with how your body works--”

Yunho clenches down: “Not even a little bit--”

Changmin sucks in a quick breath: “Maybe just a little bit--”

“I was going to say--”

Changmin kisses Yunho quiet. “You’re distracting me,” he says.

Yunho shifts his hips. “You’re not fucking me.”

Changmin stops moving entirely. “No, I’m not,” he says quietly. “I’m not fucking you at all.”

Yunho scowls at him and tries to pull away from the hands holding his face. “Changdol--”

“I’m making love to you,” Changmin continues earnestly, a blush riding high on both of his own cheeks. “Now shut up and _let me_ \--”

Yunho makes an embarrassing noise and comes before he can stop himself, dry because it’s already been three orgasms and he’s not feeling anywhere close to finished. “Changdol,” he says breathlessly.

“I don’t need to put a baby in you to have it be ours, Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says. “I don’t have to put a baby in you to want to keep you forever, Yunho-hyung.”

Yunho buries his face in the center of Changmin’s collarbones and tries very hard to just breathe. “Fuck,” he says.

Changmin's hips are twisting in slow, perfect circles. Changmin’s hands are still cradling the expanse of Yunho’s cheekbones, thumbs sliding along the fine hair at the front of his ears. “Hyung,” he says.

Yunho can’t do this looking at him, but he owes it to him anyway. “But what if,” he starts to say, lifting his head up to meet Changmin’s unfairly earnest eyes. “But what if I--” He breaks off again because he can’t do this _period_.

“You don’t have to--”

Yunho drops a hand into the center of Changmin’s lips. “What if I want to--what if I haven’t loved myself all the way until now?” Yunho finishes finally. He holds Changmin’s gaze with all the courage he’s felt like he’s been missing for the past eleven years.

“Yunho-yah.” Changmin’s brow is furrowing.

“I’m an omega,” Yunho forces out. He’s aware that Changmin has stilled all the way now, no longer fucking him in the slightest, but finds he doesn’t really care about it. “I’m part of SM’s passion-line.”

Changmin’s lips twitch.

“On dominance quizzes, I score in the ninety-seventh percentile,” Yunho continues. “But I. I like it when you take care of me.”

Changmin’s throat bobs.

“I want you to put a baby in me,” Yunho keeps going.

Changmin’s breath catches.

“I want--I want you to make a family with me--” Yunho finishes, feeling like he’s run a marathon before Changmin’s had a chance to knot. “Fuck,” he swears, laughing like he can’t help himself. “Fuck. Changdol--”

Changmin is staring down at him with his mouth parted.

“It took me nine years to be okay with that,” Yunho tries to explain. “Nine years.”

“Hyung.”

“I spent nine years perfectly content to be an omega because it meant I got to be with you because science fucking _said so_.”

Changmin’s mouth twists to one side. “Controversial,” he says dryly.

“The by-product of dating you,” Yunho retorts, shifting a little so that he reminds them both that they’re still joined down below. “But what was I saying?”

Changmin blinks lazily down at him, definitely distracted by the reminder that his cock is ball deep in Yunho. “Um,” he says. “Nine years?”

“Right.” Yunho smiles up at him. “I want to marry you, Changminnie,” he says. “I want to have babies with you.”

Changmin’s nostrils flare.

“And I want to tell you that when every instinct in me isn’t roaring at me to do that,” Yunho finishes. “I want to shout it from the rooftops.”

Changmin ducks his head to bury his face in Yunho’s neck but his hips keep moving regardless and when Yunho puts his hand on his head he shoves into it.

“It doesn’t change anything about me,” Yunho continues. “In fact, it makes me who I am--”

Changmin’s mouth parts on what sounds like a sob and he’s lifting off of Yunho’s chest to kiss him like if he doesn’t he’ll die. “Yunho-hyung,” he moans into it. “My Yunho-hyung.”

“Yours,” Yunho agrees in between the press of Changmin’s tongue. “Always yours--”

“Mine, mine, _mine_ ,” Changmin affirms, and rolls his hips in time to the words until he starts to come, knot expanding and tying them together utterly perfectly.

Yunho gasps, going boneless with the joy of it and feels something stuck deep in the pit of him finally start to unfurl and ease. The sweat lining his brow starts to feel cool. The milk of Changmin’s dick inside of him is a soothing balm, despite the latex keeping it from being all the way satisfying.

He smooths his fingers through Changmin’s near drenched hair. “I’m alright, though,” Yunho says finally.

Changmin hums in question.

“If this is the last one.”

Changmin whines like Yunho’s tried to pull away from him.

“Heat’s just ovulation, anyway,” Yunho tries out, still petting him. “It’s not like our sex life has to die.”

“Yunho-hyung,” says Changmin.

Yunho smiles. “I love you a whole world, Changdollie,” he says.

Changmin kisses him.

\--

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) Love you all! Comments/kudos/retweets are always appreciated and lovely.
> 
> (So... **[My heart has changed after meeting you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13546152/chapters/31079514)** is soooo close to being #2 fic in the tag and I WANT IT DESPERATELY TO BE THE ONE and it's like 30 kudos sooooooo.)
> 
> [Tumblr masterpost](http://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/176314318945/right-now-you-and-i-are-clumsy-but-youre) || [Twitter masterpost](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1022602745981882368)


	11. siphon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Kinah and Hexmen. All other mistakes are my own.

**11\. Siphon**

\--

“Are you going to fall in the pool again this time?” says Changmin.

“Shut the fuck up,” says Yunho.

“Wow, romance is dead,” says 50-san.

“No, don’t,” cuts in Achi-san. “They’ll take that as a challenge--”

“I mean, how sweet of you to worry about me, Changmin,” Yunho says pleasantly, even going so far as to smile at Changmin’s dumb ramen head.

They’re back to the grind filming their music video at the end of their tour preparation, and Yunho is finally starting to feel a little less worried about the state of his ankle. He’d give it fifty-percent recovered in private and eighty-percent recovered for their fans and their staff, but he and Changmin went to the doctor several times post-heat-season in order to follow up regarding last month’s fiasco--Japan’s finest weren’t particularly happy about Yunho’s lack of sleep, diet, or exercise levels, either, but nobody outright said that it was children or TVXQ. Yunho could tell anyway, but he’s gotten very good at pretending not to be bothered at this point.

“Hey,” Changmin says, interjecting in between Yunho’s thoughts with a smile. “What kind of mate would I be if I didn’t worry about your wellbeing?”

Yunho lifts an eyebrow in response, then giggles when Changmin reaches out to slap a hand to Yunho’s ass.

“Gross,” one of their dancers says.

“I thought Changmin was the one with his mark on his ass?” whispers another one of them, before he’s hushed.

Yunho hides a smirk in a smile and keeps perfectly still.

“I fucking hate you,” Changmin says out of the side of his mouth.

“You fucking love me,” Yunho replies out of the entirety of his mouth, before readying his own hand for his own slap.

“Don’t you dare,” Changmin says. He lets go of Yunho so that he can rush out of reach.

Yunho pouts, but doesn’t chase him. He’ll get him eventually--with bonus cameras rolling for behind the scenes footage.

“We’ll just go to the hot springs,” Achi-san says. “You’ve always said you wanted to go, yeah?”

Changmin turns away from Yunho’s tormenting with bright eyes. “Yeah, that’ll be fun,” he says. “Relaxing.” He shoots Yunho an odd, knowing look.

Yunho swallows and feels a little bit choked up. “Changdol.”

“We should go,” Changmin says again. “Sungchang-hyung!”

Their Japanese team leader lifts his head up from whatever he’d been consulting over by the director.

“We’re going to a Hot Spring before the tour ends!”

Sungchang-hyung clearly has no time for any of their bullshit, and he lifts his hand in the air with the middle finger raised.

Changmin cackles and goes back to stretching out his arms and shoulders in preparation for performing ‘Sweat.’

“A hot spring would be fun,” Achi-san continues, ignoring the fuss. “And we’ll be able to get to the bottom of things.”

50-san snickers. “Ha,” he says. “Bottom.”

“Shut up and go kiss your wife,” Ryu-san crows, reaching over to smack the other man on the shoulder good naturedly a few times. “Or is she not here because we’re not doing ‘Wedding Dress.’”

50-san smiles and pulls away from the embrace in good nature. “You shut up--”

“You married her?” Yunho says, joy radiating off him in waves. “Congratulations!”

50-san rubs at the back of his neck a few times. “Last year,” he says. “You--You came?”

“Where’s your mark?” Yunho continues, pretending he hasn’t heard and didn’t actually attend. “If you’re okay with me seeing--”

Changmin stops stretching and moves back to Yunho’s side, tossing back his hair so that it’s not falling into his eyes. “Hyung--”

“Ah, yeah,” 50-san says and reaches down to tug the collar of his shirt down.

Yunho stares at the teeth marks lining the base of the man’s throat and feels his right hip twinge in response. “Congratulations,” he says again.

“Again, you were there,” 50-san says.

“Indulge him, Sensei,” Changmin says finally. “Age isn’t just a number for him.”

“I’m older than you both,” 50-san says mildly.

“I am not the one who nearly made us late because he forgot his phone,” Yunho puts in helpfully.

Changmin ignores the both of them. “We’re putting you into the MC,” he tells 50-san. “Ignore Hyung.” The Korean somehow doesn’t sound weird in between the Japanese. “He lacks tact--and common sense, sometimes.”

Yunho opens his mouth to respond and then closes it guiltily the moment Sungchang-hyung comes by them carrying a script.

“Ah.” 50-san seems amused.

“Because your wife is a dancer,” Changmin continues. “And you’re both dancing for ‘Wedding Dress.’”

“Changminnie just wanted to include a lot of love this tour,” Yunho says. “Since we fell in love during the _Time_ Tour.”

There’s a beat.

Changmin’s smile is jagged and painful looking but his eyes are practically sparkling with barely concealed pleasure. “The _Tone_ Tour,” he says dryly. “Yunho-hyung--” The Korean comes out before Changmin can help himself, and their dancers all collectively stop eavesdropping and move off to practice amongst themselves.

Yunho would feel bad, if Changmin wasn’t staring at him with his own version of heart eyes.

“Oops,” Yunho says. “Sorry, Changdol.” He switches languages as well.

“Mmm,” Changmin says.

“Yeah,” Yunho says. He wants to kiss Changmin.

“They’re ready to do a practice try,” Sungchang-hyung tells them all in Japanese finally. “We need the sun to go down--”

Yunho risks a glance away from Changmin to check on that, which he realizes is incredibly ironic.

“--so we’re going to do interviews first. Yunho-yah.”

Yunho pastes a smile on his face and swings around to face Sungchang-hyung and Sungchang-hyung’s trusty cue cards.

“Which one of you is going first?”

Changmin gets a look in his eye that says there will be a lot of bedroom punishment happening if Yunho doesn’t take the fall and go first, but Yunho pretends to be blinded by the very much not setting sun and smiles.

“Changmin-ah,” he says.

“I’m going to make you sleep on the couch for a week,” Changmin growls, but turns on a megawatt smile anyway. “What would you like to talk about?”

\--

“It’s funny, actually,” Changmin says on their way home from filming, exhausted to the bone and unable to stop yawning.

Yunho’s got ice on his ankle and is finding it very hard to keep his eyes open, but he hums.

“That 50-san got married last April.”

Yunho blinks. “He didn’t, though. It was May 3rd. We were there--”

“Because _we_ basically got married last April, as well,” Changmin continues anyway. “That’ll be ironic when we talk about it in the MC.”

Yunho keeps blinking. “Changminnie, are you sure we should be worrying about my memory and not yours?”

Changmin raises one eyebrow at him and meets his eyes dead on.

Yunho stares back at him and shifts his ice bag around on his ankle.

Changmin’s chest rises, then falls.

Yunho’s heart opens and blooms. “Oh,” he says finally, voice a ghost.

“Yeah,” Changmin echoes.

They go back to their phones, cheeks on matching fire.

From the front of the van, Sungchang-hyung sighs. “I’m going to have to call my wife again,” he tells Jungmin-hyung sadly. “Tell her it’s not my fault romance is dead--it’s that I work with the world’s sappiest idiots and nothing else could ever compare.”

“Don’t look at me. I’m single,” Jungmin-hyung says.

“You’re both very sad and should be fired,” Changmin interrupts, not looking up. “Less talking, more driving.”

“How rude, Changdol,” Yunho says, leaning into his side with another yawn.

Changmin doesn’t glance away from his mobile game, but he shifts so that Yunho is better leaned into him. “Guilty,” he says. “It’s my brand.”

“Yeah, okay,” Yunho says. “We all know you’re a marshmallow.”

“Actually, that’s you,” Changmin says. “I’m more like chocolate.”

Yunho opens his mouth. “Like… smores?”

“Because of my abs,” Changmin continues earnestly and Yunho reaches for them immediately. “Ow--careful, they’re insured.”

“They are not,” Yunho says, giving them another pinch in response. “You idiot.”

“Your idiot,” Changmin says. “And they are too--you totally licked things off them last night--”

Yunho lifts off of Changmin’s side with heat all across his face: “Changdol-ah!”

“What!” Changmin drops his phone and settles pleasantly against the car door, staring back at Yunho’s blushing face with a look so sweet that Yunho’s teeth ache with phantom cavities. “You did.” He somehow manages to make besotted look lecherous, but then, that might just be because Avex has had him wearing a perpetual perm since they decided on their lead single. Yunho would wager it’s hard not to look a little bit like a pervert when your hair is as wavy as ramen, and Yunho is no secret to Changmin’s natural curl (both on his head and elsewhere), nor does he find it anything but sexy.  

Their managers heave a collective sigh from the front of the car.

“Oh, shut up,” Changmin says. “Get used to it--it’s _in_ the MC--”

“Are you going to tell him that flirting hasn’t been in the MC since literally debut?” Sungchang-hyung says dryly.

“No, I think you should since you’re older and married,” Jungmin-hyung says.

“Yunho-yah, fire them,” Changmin says and points.

Yunho looks between the lot of them and can’t help but laugh.

“Yah. Yunho. Yah,” Changmin says over the top of it. “This isn’t firing--”

“Changdollie, please,” Yunho says and takes hold of Changmin’s flailing hands before he can actually try to take out their managers before they get home.

“This is insubordination--this is contract _violation_ \--”

“I don’t think you know what that word means,” Sungchang-hyung says.

“Don’t blame him--he hasn’t had the best role models for that,” Jungmin-hyung continues for him, and they all collectively stop for a moment to let that sink in.

Yunho keeps holding Changmin by both hands and squeezes, before the younger man swallows and breaks out into a wide grin.

“Wow,” Sungchang-hyung says.

“Never mind, promote him,” Changmin says.

“What--we were all thinking it?” Jungmin-hyung says.

“I’m really glad nobody is thinking about weddings anymore,” Yunho says.

“Don’t worry, Hyung, I’ll be sure to mention it during every single show,” Changmin says.

Yunho rolls his eyes at him.

\--

“Shim Changmin,” Yunho says.

Changmin ignores him.

They’re fresh off the high of the second show of the tour and Yunho won’t lie--he gets it. Opening night is of course one of the most nerve wracking shows to do period, but the night after has its own sets of bells and whistles. Completing the first show of a tour is a relief because the first show sets the stage for what’s to come; completing the _second_ show of a tour is a relief because it means the first one wasn’t a fluke. Half the time Yunho can’t quite come down from the high of not only successfully finishing a show period, let alone from the fact that they somehow managed to do it all over again.

Changmin is at present engaged in a mass hug and high five with all of their dancers.

Yunho gets that as well. He still isn’t deterred.

“Shim Changmin,” he says again. It’s only Changmin’s name, but already he can tell by the slope of their manager’s shoulders that they know he’s switched languages.

Changmin can tell too: the other man somewhat guiltily disengages from his puppy pile and turns to face Yunho. “Yunho-hyung.” The Korean honorific only cements the language change.

“‘I’m envious’,” Yunho translates, forgoing context. “Really?”

It takes Changmin an embarrassing three seconds to catch up. “Oh, you’re quoting me,” he says quickly in Korean. “Context is your friend, Yunho-hyung.”

Yunho gets a feeling Changmin’s making sure to put his name first on purpose. “Why are you envious about newlyweds?”

Changmin blinks at him.

Yunho blinks back at him.

Changmin’s ears flush a little. “It’s an MC, Yunho-hyung,” he says. “It was just for the fans.”

Yunho doesn’t buy that. Changmin had been a little too gleeful when he’d said the thing, particularly because Yunho hadn’t managed to keep the surprise from his eyes the moment Changmin’s words sunk in. “Uh-huh.”

“No really, Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says again. “You shouldn’t read into it.” He’s still tacking Yunho’s name on at the front of his formality, which for some reason Yunho can’t help but notice. It makes him feel like Changmin is trying to appease him, or something, which. Fair.

The entire exchange had forced Yunho to something of a halt--on the one hand, the fans had loved it; on the other hand, as the person in question who would be most likely to marry Changmin period, the sentence had been something of a surprise. Especially given that Changmin of all people has never expressed any desire towards marriage. Not in a way that was more than just possession, anyway. And Yunho liked that too, so they’d never discussed it outside of the bedroom.

“Changdol.”

Changmin leans back into 50-san when their dancer drapes an arm around his shoulders. “You shouldn’t be envious,” the man says, clearly having picked up on what they two of them had been talking about. “You predate us.”

Yunho ducks his head, not willing to make a scene.

Changmin snorts. “Yeah, okay,” he says. He’s back to speaking Japanese with perfect ease.

“You do, though,” Ryu-san says.

Yuuki-san nods beside him, and Yunho sticks his tongue out before he can help himself.

“A full month--”

Changmin finally pulls away from 50-san shaking his head. “The fans liked it,” he protests. “And the song is called ‘Wedding Dress’--you’re the one who wanted to dance with your wife anyway.”

50-san shoves him good-naturedly on the shoulder. “Your company wanted married couples,” he said.

“Actually, that was Yunho’s idea,” Changmin says, at the same time Yunho clears his throat and starts to try moving the mess of them through the bowels of the dome.

“Okay!” he says. “We should all get changed and go home, yes?” When that doesn’t get a response, he switches tactics. “Or do you want to talk about the name of our single instead?”

Changmin’s ears go bright red and he finally breaks fully away from their dancers. “Hyung!”

Yunho is pleased to hear his name drop out of that sentence. “I don’t think the entirety of the dome heard--should we mention it again tomorrow?”

“Hyung!” Changmin says again, still faintly blushing. “You were thinking it too.”

“No, Changdol,” Yunho says dryly. “Not everyone is constantly making dick jokes all the time.”

Changmin scowls at him. “The word is literally the Korean for penis I don’t know what you want from me,” he snaps, around the same time Sungchang-hyung arrives in front of them on the phone.

There is a beautiful, cinematic pause.

Sungchang-hyung’s temples practically throb like they’re in a cartoon. “No, Youngmin-seonsaengnim,” he says. “That was absolutely not Shim Changmin saying the word penis-- _you have misheard_.”

“Oh boy,” Ryu-san says.

“You said it on stage,” Yuuki-san concedes.

“We should really go get changed out of our costumes,” 50-san determines, and he vanishes so quickly Yunho almost gets whiplash.

Changmin glares after them with his arms crossed. “Traitors,” he mutters. His ears are still faintly blushing.

Yunho wants to put him in his pocket and keep him forever.

He settles for hooking an arm around his shoulders and smacking a wet, large kiss into the center of his too-sharp-to-be-fair cheekbone, following after Changmin when the younger man scowls, yelps, and tries to get away.

He settles into Yunho’s side after a moment anyway, pressed together so that they’re hip to hip even as Changmin crosses his arms and scowls harder. He’s still blushing in the shells of his ears, and no matter of sweat-damp hair can keep Yunho from noticing. It’s charming.

“It’s literally the word, though,” Changmin protests darkly, even as Sungchang-hyung laughs loudly and starts talking about how he had heard about the good old days when Changmin talked about wax play on national television and how he had been relieved that nothing like that had happened on his watch. “For ‘sweat.’ In Korean. You asshole.”

The easy joke here is the Japanese word for ‘sweat’ is the Korean word for ‘penis,’ not ‘asshole,’ but Yunho is above that. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “You didn’t have to point it out, though.”

Changmin glowers at him. “You brought it up.”

“You made it a big deal.” Yunho leans his weight a little bit so that he’s not so much draped across Changmin as he is using Changmin as a very useful support.

“You said people stop being newlyweds after one year--”

“You said you were envious--”

“Yes, of course, Youngmin-seonsaengnim, it’s been good to speak to you too,” Sungchang-hyung interrupts loudly, before lowering his phone in a way that suggests if they were living pre-2010, he’d have flipped the thing shut with an audible clack.

Yunho doesn’t pull away from Changmin, but that’s only because of the grip the other man very suddenly has on his right hip. When Yunho looks at him, he gets a surprisingly serious expression in return.

“Don’t do that,” Changmin says. “Not here.”

Yunho feels guilt settle into the pit of his stomach, but he doesn’t apologize. “Changdol-ah.”

“Everybody and their mother will be looking up what exactly you were talking about,” Sungchang-hyung continues saying over the top of them, with one hand pressed to his temples. “Please from now on stick to announcing the single in English.”

Changmin has the good graces to duck his head in response. “That’s fine. Hyung’s cute when he fails to English anyway.”

Yunho tries to pull away from him for a whole other set of reasons. “I am not!”

Changmin holds on with vice-like tenacity, pulling Yunho in so that he can be the one to press a kiss to Yunho’s cheekbone this time, wet and messy and complete with more tongue than there ever needed to be.

“Gross--Changmin-ah-- _Gross_!” Yunho says, struggling, and finally manages to detach Changmin like he would a particularly aggressive octopus tentacle. The whole thing feels very Japanese hentai, and makes Yunho want to blush and hide away from the world for at least two years minimum.

Sungchang-hyung just looks between the two of them with the patience of a saint and the disappointment of all their parents rolled into one. “Get out of my sight,” the man says finally. “Jungmin needed you ready for the van minutes ago.”

“Love you, Hyung, really,” Changmin says to their Japanese team leader this time, and he even darts in to kiss him on the cheek--with considerably less tongue and far too much glee, Yunho might add--before running off before Yunho can so much as follow.

“I’m going to kill him,” he tells Sungchang-hyung seriously, and starts after him with narrowed eyes. “I’m going to make him wish he’d come up with the ‘Wedding Dress’ MC, because then Sam-san might let him change it.”

“Please just don’t propose to him on stage,” Yunho hears Sungchang-hyung mutter after him, but he’s too busy plotting to get Changmin back tenfold for tomorrow’s night show.

\--

Changmin is probably going to murder Yunho. They get off stage and herded over towards water and the elevators still in the tour shirts and jeans, and Changmin is going to _murder_ Yunho. Yunho’s surprised that Changmin held it together for the entire show, let alone somehow remembered--because he has _definitely_ remembered, if the way he systematically ditches all of their handlers and tugs Yunho around a amazingly empty corner to shove him into a wall and put his mouth on him, one hand already down and thumbing at Yunho’s waistline and the other fisted in Yunho’s hair so that he can hold him where he wants him.

“‘I don’t know,’” Changmin purrs out against Yunho’s lips. “‘I’m not married.’”

Yunho stares back at him with his heart thumping in his chest and the blood roaring in his ears, still trying to figure out how it was they managed to end up alone and in a secluded part of their underset without Hosik-hyung or Sungchang-hyung chasing them down shouting and pointing at clocks because of schedules and the finiteness of time. “Oh,” he says finally once it becomes clear that Changmin isn’t going to keep kissing him within an inch of his life. “You’re quoting me.”

Yunho realizes he’s basically parroted back Changmin’s excuse from earlier, but he can’t quite help himself.

Especially when Changmin’s hips press forward in response, a growl rumbling in the heart of his chest and one leg working in between Yunho’s to rub up against the seam of Yunho’s jeans almost in punishment.

“Changdol-ah,” Yunho gets out. “It’s a MC.”

Changmin’s tongue darts out to wet his lips, so quick Yunho should miss it, but because it’s his tongue--and Yunho loves his tongue, loves it to the point of wanting to write love songs and poetry about the sharpness of it--Yunho notices.

His cock goes half hard before he can so much as help himself. “You shouldn’t read into it,” Yunho manages to finish anyway, because his mother taught him to never leave a bed half made.

Changmin’s lips thin a little. “Yunho-hyung,” he says. This time, the honorific just makes Yunho’s belly go warm and fizzy.

“Look,” he manages to say. “It’s like you said--the fans loved it--”

“The fans,” Changmin over-enunciates. “Aren’t the one you were talking to.”

“No,” Yunho concedes. He’d said the thing mostly because Changmin pressed the issue, and yes, he’d been planning something since Changmin started going on about being envious about married couples (which some part of Yunho was still smarting from; he wouldn’t lie) but also, he’d panicked a little. Changmin moved in asking him about how long people could be considered newlyweds, practically daring Yunho to say something funny with his eyes, and Yunho had picked up his microphone and said, point blank, ‘I don’t know. I’m not married.’ while their fans shouted around them.

They came off stage to change costumes several times after that, and every time, there was a manager-hyung hovering beside Changmin looking like it was execution day, but also keeping Changmin from coming for Yunho.

Which brought them here, in a secluded, darkened corner of Yokohama arena, Yunho thrown up against a wall and Changmin holding him there practically thrumming with unchained desire.

Yunho whimpers. He really can’t help himself. “What were you asking me?” he tries finally.

Changmin finally lets up on the wall-pinning so that Yunho’s lungs don’t feel quite so squished. “I know what you’re doing,” he says. His eyes are narrowed.

Around the corner, Yunho can hear Sungchang-hyung looking for them. He gulps, then swallows. “Fuck.”

Changmin’s eyes flash.

“We should-- Hyung’s going to kill me-- Changdol-ah-- Never mind, fuck it.” Yunho gives up, closes his mouth, and tips his head back to expose the line of his throat. “Kiss me--”

Changmin leans in so close that they’re breathing the same air and then stops. For two terrible seconds, he stays there, leg pressed up against Yunho’s aching, rock hard cock, one hand in Yunho’s disheveled, sweat-damp hair, and the other tracing along Yunho’s mate-mark with one perfectly, clean cut nail. Then he sighs, smirks like he knows he’s worth more than two billion won, and pulls away from Yunho all at once.

Yunho’s not really sure how he manages it, but somehow he doesn’t end up pitching forward. It must be the eleven years of dancing, because otherwise he’d been facedown and groaning, instead of propped haphazardly against a wall with his chest heaving and his cheeks so warm he’s worried he’s doing permanent damage. “Changmin.”

Changmin schools his features into perfect innocence and raises his voice. “Over here, Sungchang-hyung,” he says.

Yunho gets himself off the wall and starts combing desperately through his hair. “You asshole--Changdol--”

“Yunho-hyung’s here too.” Changmin’s grinning at him like a cat who’s caught a very large, very unlucky canary.

Yunho needs his brain to stop coming up with predator prey metaphors, because they’re doing nothing to calm his raging libido.

“We had things to discuss.”

Sungchang-hyung rounds the corner heaving a deep, put-upon sigh. “I have a working Jacobson’s,” the man says longsufferingly. “Everyone on this floor knows what it was you two were discussing.”

Changmin just shrugs, still grinning. “Well, Yunho-hyung thought it would be funny to go on about how he doesn’t know about newlywed things because he’s not married,” he says pleasantly. “And then you all kept me from discussing it with him--”

“Discussing it,” Yunho mutters, giving up on his hair as a lost cause and slowly but certainly trying to inch his way away from Changmin. His ankle twinges when he does so, and he’s too jumpy and twitchy from earlier to do anything to keep from wincing and putting of a sudden barrage of pain pheromones into the air around them. “Shit, ow,” he says, somewhat redundantly, and rubs at the bone of his ankle with his other foot.

Changmin’s attention shifts like a laser, hyper focused and displeased. “I thought you said ninety-percent,” he says.

Yunho meets his eyes. “You knew I was lying.” If Changmin tries to carry him out of Yokohama Arena he will put him on the couch and spend the next few tour dates finding ways to ignore the ‘Wedding Dress’ MC entirely.

Changmin picks up on that after what feels like only two seconds because his hands clench on empty air, but he doesn’t move to coddle Yunho at all.

It makes Yunho feel guilty for his reaction, but he sticks to his guns regardless. “I thought it was funny,” he says, turning the conversation back around to their MC. One brightside, at least, is that his ankle has pretty effectively ruined the earlier mood. Even Changmin no longer smells like they won’t be sleeping the moment they get home and alone.

Sungchang-hyung pinches the bridge of his nose. “You two will give me more grey hair than I deserve,” he says.

“Sorry,” Yunho says.

“Yeah,” Changmin says.

“Sam-san is looking for you,” Sungchang-hyung says. “Wants to go over the song order--”

“Right,” Yunho says, even though he knows they’re not going to touch the setlist this soon into the tour. “Thank you.”

He doesn’t take Changmin by the hand like part of him wants to, but he still waits until the other man falls into perfect sync beside him before making his way back towards the busier parts of their backstage underbelly.

\--

Changmin deviates from their preplanned script on the 28th. Yunho’s been wanting to drop more advanced Japanese into their MCs since the end of the _Time_ tour, in part because he’s been doing the dream segment since that tour, and in part simply because he still can’t quite believe they’ve managed to make it in Japan to the point where the fact that they’re foreigners is almost not important to their fans and audience. He’s been practicing the word all day--Changmin jumping in to help him with it every now and again, and yes, he’s also been reading up on four character idioms again, but that’s nerves.

And Sam-san helps him out, teaches him a new one that makes Changmin put a hand on the small of Yunho’s back and dimple at him like sunshine while they’re waiting for their cue to get into position to start the show. _Isshindodai_. Two souls, one body. It’s one of those words Yunho thinks they ought to have in every language and hits so close to home that Yunho can practically see their manager’s displeasure and nervous energy all the way across the room.

“You could just say soulmate,” Changmin tells him pleasantly, fiddling with Yunho’s inears for the excuse to keep touching him.

Their sound staff are off to the side twitching anxiously every time he does so, but Yunho doesn’t even care if it means the audio is fucked up and he won’t be able to hear himself think, let alone keep pitch for the full three and a half hours. “I really couldn’t, though,” he says.

Changmin’s mouth turns down at the corners and he finally stops touching the backs of Yunho’s ears.

“Smile, Changminnie,” Yunho says after a pause. “It’s our first night in Nagoya.”

Changmin manages a tiny smile. “You smile,” he says quietly, still a little bit sad despite his expression. “I haven’t forgiven you for the wedding thing--and I’ve been planning.”

Yunho doesn’t even have it in him to be worried. “Yeah, okay, Changdol,” he says. “Hit me with whatever you want.”

That gets him a the most beautiful smirk in the world. “Remember you asked for it,” Changmin says. Then, in time for a staff member to come by to force them to their individual starting position for ‘Champion.’ “Everyday occurrence.”

Yunho can’t help but giggle at him, but repeats the Japanese back anyway.

“What about you, Yunho?” Changmin says on stage later, no names, because Japanese, but still somehow managing to convey the same sentiment of hyung. “Do you want to get married?”

Yunho stares back at him and laughs and fakes it because he’s of course been trained for that question, but already starts thinking about ways to one-up Changmin and hit him where it hurts.

\--

“It must be weird to work together and be married,” Yunho says the second night in Nagoya, one eye shrewdly cataloguing Changmin’s response to the question.

“Oh, it must be,” Changmin replies, utterly untouched by it all.

“But nice, probably,” Yunho pushes, not one to be outdone.

Changmin’s left eye twitches.

“I think newlyweds are one year only,” Yunho says the third night in Nagoya, trying to turn the conversation back to where the MC began; with a discussion about how long you could conceivably call yourselves newlyweds and at what point you become just. Weds. Married people.

“Well, can you really put an expiration date on love?” Changmin replies, pragmatically, overtop the sudden screaming of their fans. “That seems wrong.”

Yunho grits his teeth and smiles back at him. “True.”

50-san and his wife have their anniversary on the 3rd, and Yunho is saved further humiliation by that fact itself. Changmin tells them to be careful since the honeymoon phase is over; 50-san very pointedly mentions that Yunho and Changmin have been mated for longer than he and Rina and are also very much _not_ out of the honeymoon phase; Changmin equally pointedly brings up the fact that he and Yunho _are not married_ ; and Yunho laughs like death has come and excuses himself to go sneeze three times in worrying succession in the corner.

Changmin wanders by a few moments later with pills and water, brow furrowed and all earlier mischief and wedding discussions forgotten. “Are you getting sick?”

“No,” Yunho says quickly, even though his throat tickled a bit earlier, and he’s been eating oranges and scarfing down vitamin c tablets regardless. “Allergies. There’s dust here.”

Changmin squints at him. “You’re not allergic to dust.”

“Most people are allergic to dust,” Yunho replies. “It’s fine. I’ve got a mask in the car.”

Changmin pulls a face mask out of his bag without pause and hands it over to Yunho still squinting.

Yunho takes it and pulls it behind his ears, flicking his hair over the elastic and smiling even though Changmin can’t see him. “I’m fine.”

And he is fine, all the way through Miyagi on the 4th (“Yunho-hyung is one day going to get married because he’s not an _object_ ,” Changmin says, because he’s an absolute terrible asshole.), both days in Sapporo on the 7th and 8th (“Oh. I spoke to you like we were at home,” Changmin says on the 7th, Keigo dropped definitely not on purpose, because he immediately smells like a shocked, apologetic sundae;  “I’m not married, yet, so I wouldn’t know,” Yunho says on the 8th, not meeting anybody’s eyes.), and the start of their rehearsals on the 10th.

By the end of them, Yunho is sneezing, his eyes are red rimmed and teary, and two managers have run out to get him flu pills and frowned at him.

“Yunho’s not interested in marriage,” Changmin says on the 11th, but not entirely wholeheartedly, like his heart isn’t in it.

Yunho just smiles and fakes it and dances like his life depends on it.

On the car ride back to their apartment, he’s silent, head pressed up against the cooling glass of their van and heart pounding in his chest. His ankle was acting up the entire performance, and even that Yunho thinks he can blame on the sudden bout of illness.

Sam-san had taken one look at him and not so politely announced to them all that if Changmin got sick immediately following he would reconsider all rules about public displays of affection at work from henceforth, and Yunho hadn’t even had the energy to smack the man or dispute the verdict.

He’d done the show, because how could he not do the show, but he’d been very miserable for most of it. Not that anybody other than Changmin had known.

“Hey,” Changmin says. He puts a hand on Yunho’s shoulder and then works clever fingers into the meat of the muscle there.

Yunho’s tense because they’re midtour and his leg isn’t all the way better, but also because he has a headache that might be a migraine, and a fever he cannot afford to have in the middle of a tour.

Changmin’s fingers are calming and soothing because he’s amazing at massages and the love of Yunho’s tragic, disease ridden life, and for once, Yunho doesn’t have to feel the tiniest bit guilty about pressing into the other man’s touch and moaning for more. “Fuck,” he says, which isn’t sexual in the slightest and makes their managers speed up the car ever so slightly.

The faster they get home, the sooner Changmin can tuck Yunho into bed and try to help him sweat it out, and the closer Yunho is to a full recovery in time for Niigata.

Changmin works his fingers up the muscle of Yunho’s neck to go for the knots at the base of Yunho’s spine and Yunho sighs, head dropping forward so that his seatbelt is the only thing keeping him upright.

Something about that displeases Changmin, because there’s a clink, and the slide of fabric, and then Changmin is sitting directly next to Yunho and buckled in before Jungmin-hyung can so much as shout about it, and Yunho is able to prop his head down on Changmin’s shoulder to use as the world’s most comfortable pillow.

“I love you,” he tells Changmin softly. “And biology.”

Changmin doesn’t slip a hand around Yunho’s shoulders, probably because that will get him yelled at by Jungmin-hyung, because van safety is more important than cuddling and there are never any exceptions. He’s still a pain reliever by virtue of biology alone, and Yunho already feels the ache in his temples lessen.

“But speaking of,” he mumbles out. “Changminnie.”

Changmin hums a little in response.

“Is the reason you keep talking about me getting married because you want me to propose to you?”

In the front seat, Jungmin-hyung makes the tires squeal a little rounding a curve. “Sorry,” the man says. “Sorry.”

Changmin ignores him and Yunho keeps his eyes shut.

He wants to yawn. He doesn’t. “I can totally propose to you if you want,” Yunho continues. “Only, I can’t make it official until later.” He swallows, then forces his eyes open. It hurts. The car is brighter than Yunho remembered and every move they make makes Yunho dizzy and nauseated. “I can’t even get you a ring.” Yunho thinks of the bracelet tucked into his suitcase in their room at home and swallows painfully a few times past the lump in his sore throat.

“Yunho-yah.” Changmin’s voice is very small and very soft.

Yunho tries to look at him, then gives up and sinks more solidly out of his own seat so that he’s more awkwardly curled into Changmin’s neck and shoulder. He feels a little like one of those pink birds, gone to sleep with their heads upside down and one leg in the air.

He feels raw.

“It’s not fair,” Yunho hears himself say. This turned around, he can see Changmin’s fingers clench in the fabric of his post-show sweats; this pressed close, he can smell Changmin go from ‘happy to cuddle’ to ‘angry at the world’ in the time it takes for the man to get himself under control and let his knuckles go flesh toned again. “I’m not allowed to give you babies.”

Changmin’s head turns and Yunho feels the other man’s chin against the top of his head.

“I’m not allowed to marry you.”

“Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says again. He sounds miserable.

Yunho doesn’t want to look at him. “Sorry,” he says.

That gets him a reaction. Changmin moves suddenly so that Yunho ends up unseated, forces the older man to lift his head and look at him, and for two awful moments they stare at each other bled dry and past secrets.

“I’m sick, Changminnie, sorry,” Yunho says again finally. “Ignore me.”

Changmin’s mouth sets into a line. “Yunho-hyung,” he says again. He doesn’t kiss Yunho. Yunho thinks it’s because of Sam-san’s warning.

Yunho laughs. “Listen to me,” he says. “You’d think I wasn’t a world-famous musician.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d go so far to say _world-_ famous,” Changmin tries to interject helpfully.  

“I’m lucky because I met you,” Yunho continues. “I’m lucky because I met you and found you and figured myself out because--”

“You’re Jung U-Know Yunho,” Changmin interrupts, less helpfully this time, but far more emphatically. His tone brooks no argument. His eyes are incredibly serious. “You figured yourself out because you’re U-Know Yunho,” he says again. “U-Know Yunho can do anything.”

Yunho’s stomach ties itself in pretty, pleased knots. “Only because he has Choikang Changmin,” he says, then pauses. “Or. Max--”

“Don’t you dare--”

“Maximum?” Yunho continues regardless, butchering their song name a little. “Isn’t that what the English is--”

“I’m going to divorce you--”

“Ah ha!” Yunho says. His throat still feels a little raw and his eyes still feel  a little watery but he’s warm inside in a way that lets him know that’s because of the fever, not the reality of the situation. “So you do want to marry me.”

“Of course I want to marry you,” Changmin says in a great rush, cheeks pinking despite himself. He won’t meet Yunho’s eyes. “I wanted to marry you before I realized you’d even be able to fit on my dick, you asshole.”

Yunho blinks. “That’s actually the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me, Changdol,” he says. “And it sounds like something Kyuhyun would say.”

“Leave Kyu out of this,” says Changmin. “You don’t see me complaining about your friends.”

“You tell me all the time that you want to murder Heechul-hyung.”

“Heechul-hyung would swoop in and steal you the moment I so much as tried to leave,” retorts Changmin.

“Donghae--”

“Donghae-hyung is okay because he buys you sex toys.”

Yunho’s mouth snaps shut.

Jungmin-hyung painfully clears his throat.

Changmin ignores them both. “Yeah,” he says. “You’re not the only one who’s friends with Super Junior.”

Yunho feels his headache coming back. “Changdollie, you’re making no sense at all.”

“Well, you’re sick,” snaps Changmin and sticks his nose in the air.

Yunho blinks at him a few times.

Changmin keeps facing the roof of the car.

Jungmin-hyung, unfortunately makes the turn to pull into their garage building. He worms the car up several floors in silence.

Changmin’s ears start to flush.

Yunho smiles despite himself and then resettles into the crux of the man’s neck.

“Hyung--”

“Stop talking, Changminnie,” Yunho tells the skin in front of him pleasantly. “Hyung is sick--and you’re the world’s best pillow.”

“Only because you mated me,” Changmin says darkly, but also doesn’t move. “Only because you were made for me.”

“And you were made for me, so stop talking and let me take advantage. My head hurts.”

“I’m not carrying you into the house,” Changmin says instantly. “When you sprained your ankle Hosik-hyung specifically told me I wasn’t allowed to--”

“I’ll sleep in the car, then--”

“God, Fuck you--”

“Aren’t you a Buddhist, Changminnie? And no thank you. I’m too tired--”

“When should we change the MC, you think?” Changmin says suddenly, addressing Jungmin-hyung. “Next show? Two shows from now? We need an upgrade--we’ve got that Japanese show on the 15th, right? Let’s ask for advice--”

“But Changminnie,” Yunho says, easing himself out of the car around a yawn and a badly hidden groan. “I thought you liked the wedding MC.”

Changmin stares at him and twitches a little, before hauling Yunho up into his arms without so much as breaking a sweat.

Yunho’s heart skips a beat.

Jungmin-hyung heaves a long drawn out sigh.

“I am _right_ here,” says Hosik-hyung.

“It’s fine,” Changmin says. “I ate ramen backstage today--”

“I knew it!” Jungmin-hyung crows suddenly. “I knew it--I asked you if you ate my ramen and you damn _lied_ , Changmin-ah!”

“This’ll just count as my exercise.”

Yunho closes his eyes and breathes him in. “I can’t fault your logic,” he says. “But...”  He wiggles, and Changmin sets him down with a sigh.

“Don’t tell me,” he says. “I’m not allowed to carry you through doorways until--”

“We’ve both finished serving our country,” Yunho tells him happily. “You’re so smart, Changdol.” He pats the man on the head and then sets off towards the doors.

\--

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~whispers: **[my heart has changed after meeting you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13546152/chapters/31079514)** is literally 6 kudos away--~~
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments, kudos, and retweets make my day.
> 
> [Tumblr masterpost](http://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/176569034480/right-now-you-and-i-are-clumsy-but-youre) || [Twitter masterpost](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1025161186063667207)


	12. ebb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Hexmen and Kinah. All other mistakes are my own.

**12\. Ebb**

\--

Yunho wakes up the morning of the 25th somehow feeling more tired than he’d been the day before for their early four p.m. tour date in Tokyo. He has a flight home in a few hours for a basically non-existent schedule to keep the South Korean government from panicking about him being out of the country for too long. On the bedside table, his phone alarm is going off. On the bed itself, Yunho rapidly is realizing he’s ended up waking alone before seven a.m. on an off day. Which is weird, if not a little disappointing.

Yunho ends up squinting confusedly into the half darkness of the room and slapping around fruitlessly for his phone.

It’s Changmin’s phone. That much becomes clear once Yunho grabs it to try to make it stop screeching. His passcode doesn’t work, Yunho doesn’t even think he set an alarm on his phone, and once he has the wherewithal to enter Changmin’s passcode and turn it off, Yunho buries his face into the pillows to breathe.

Of course it’s Changmin’s phone. Yunho can never remember his schedule half the time, and the other half of the time, Changmin has Yunho’s day-to-day memorized to the point where it’s almost like he’s put a tracker in Yunho’s hip instead of just his teeth. Yunho feels giddy about it on good days, and bemused about it the rest.

Today is almost a good day.

It would be better if Changmin was flying home with Yunho.

Yunho turns his face to the side to breathe easier.

Changmin’s face stares back at him from the edge of the bed, peaceful with sleep.

Huh.

So Yunho’s not alone after all. That makes more sense; getting up before seven a.m. on an off day is not something either of them would do for anything less than the world ending, or, granted, given what starts next month, a world-wide soccer tournament.

Changmin hasn’t been able to stop messaging Kyuline back and forth about it. Their dancers are excited as well--hell, _Yunho_ is excited--but already he can tell he’s going to have to banish Changmin to his own room for the entire month of June. The World Cup is in Brazil and the time difference between Japan and Latin America is terrible enough that Yunho would much rather read about the games online (and bet against Hojoon-hyung just to piss him off) than stay up past midnight on tour nights, let alone free days.

Free days should be spent sleeping in until the sunshine wakes you, and then lounging about the apartment with nothing to do but each other.

So the fact that Changmin’s in bed with him, albeit very far away in bed with him, makes Yunho’s day far brighter.

Even though he is bone tired and not looking forward to flying home.

He yawns.

Changmin’s perfect brow furrows.

Yunho watches him and hides a smile in the sheets. “Changminnie-yah.”

Changmin doesn’t stir at all.

Yunho’s smile widens. He lets his arms pull a little as he lies against the sheets, slowly taking stock of each and every limb. The sheets have ended up pooled against the slope of Yunho’s lower back, no doubt lost in the battle to get Changmin’s phone to stop flashing and playing ‘Champion,’ and Yunho notices rather abruptly that he’s somehow lost his boxers in the middle of the night. At least. He thinks he went to bed wearing them.

Further investigation with questing toes yields nothing, however, so Yunho gives himself a few last moments of boneless peace, before hoisting himself up on his forearms.

Changmin keeps sleeping throughout all of this.

Yunho yawns again. “Changdol.”

There is no response.

Yunho debates rolling closer to him and settles for just rolling period, settling a cheek into a palm and grinning at how the shift pulls the sheets taught over Changmin’s hips and leaves an unfortunate pocket of air between them.

Changmin’s naked too.

Changmin definitely went to bed naked, however.

Yunho smirks. “Shim Changmin.” He raises his voice just a tad more.

Changmin’s eyebrows furrow again. He frowns.

Yunho gives in to temptation, and puts a hand on the man’s ass.

There is beautiful, beautiful silence.

Then, with a growl, like some sort of put-under-a-spell-creature woken hours too early with why-are-you-my-true-love’s kiss, Changmin rolls, slaps an arm around Yunho’s waist, and hauls so that Yunho ends up pulled directly into the man’s chest, nose shoved up against his ribs, hair no doubt getting all in Changmin’s mouth, and the rest of Changmin curled around him like an incredibly aggressive, naked marsupial.

Yunho’s brain starts to want to produce terrible pouch jokes, and he very quickly bites down on his own tongue to nip that in the bud.

Changmin growls again. “Stop that.”

Yunho stops. “What?”

“Leave your tongue out of this,” Changmin says.

It’s nonsense.

It should be nonsense.

Yunho finds it very hard to breathe. “What?” he says again, with a minute pause this time.

“Leave your tongue out of this,” Changmin repeats, no less muffled by the sleep still clinging to the whole of him. “It’s early. I’m sleeping.”

Yunho wiggles a little to try to see more than just his other half’s nipples.

Changmin’s grip on Yunho tightens and keeps him from moving.

Yunho goes still, shivery, and then stretched thin. He swallows.

Changmin purrs.

Yunho licks his lips. “Changdol,” he manages. “I have a flight in an hour.”

There is a long, terrible sounding pause.

Then, with a groan, Changmin releases Yunho and rolls all the way across the bed dragging the sheets with him. He ends up on his belly again, arms crossed up by his head, face turned away from Yunho, and lying directly in the patch of sun spilling into the bedroom because neither of them ever have the foresight to close the blinds when they’re otherwise occupied. His shoulders are tanned and lovely and make Yunho want to say fuck his flight and fuck the South Korean government and instead spend his off day wrapped around Changmin like the sunshine.

“Yunho-hyung.” Changmin slurs on a good day, but even more so when he’s tired and shoved his face into their bedsheets. “What have you done with my blankets?”

Yunho lifts his head up so that he can see that the blankets are on the floor on Changmin’s side of the bed, along with his boxers--so he _was_ wearing them when he went to sleep _ah-ha_ \--and then snorts. “How is it my fault?” he says.

Changmin doesn’t move. “It’s my bed,” he says.

Yunho will give him that; this is in fact Changmin’s room, Changmin’s bed, and Changmin’s phone sitting on the pillow beside him having done it’s duty and woken Yunho with enough time to make his flight home.

“True,” Yunho says. “But you are the one who took my pants off last night.”

Changmin finally lifts his head up to squint at Yunho, then leans over to squint at the blankets and the pants in question, and then reaches down with one slender hand to haul both of those things back onto the bed.

Yunho gets boxers to the face and Changmin gets cocooned back under the blankets.

“How mature,” Yunho says.

“You’re the one who put them back on after fucking me,” Changmin says.

Yunho snorts again. “No, I mean the blankets,” he says, making the executive decision that his mate would murder him if the put the boxers back on this morning as well, and deciding that raiding said mate’s underwear drawer would be far more fun anyway. “You’re clearly at fault--you are the epitome of a blanket hog.”

Changmin doesn’t so much as emerge from his swaddle of comforter and silk. “You’re the one who insisted on the cover sheet,” he says.

“Well your mother was oh so kind to buy it for us,” Yunho says, mostly because he knows that even under all of the bedding, Changmin’s ears are twin points of burning fire. “She says you need to learn not to say ‘awesome’ all the time, by the way.”

Changmin is definitely scowling under all of the bedding now. “That show aired months ago,” he says. “Like, a full year.”

“Yes, and the fact that I didn’t get to furnish my brand new apartment has tormented your mother ever since,” Yunho says dryly, staring at the Changmin shaped lump. “Although, maybe we shouldn’t tell her we use them here.”

One of Changmin’s eyes emerges. “Are you leaving?” he says. “You should leave. You’ll miss your plane.”

Yunho finally gets out of bed, trying not to preen too noticeably when Changmin’s breath hitches audibly and he finally pokes his head out to watch Yunho cross through the sunlight in search of clothing.

“This is my room,” he says woodenly, almost repeating himself. “Go use your own clothes.”

Yunho finishes his rummage through Changmin’s underwear drawer, shimmies into the first pair he finds, and raises an eyebrow.

Changmin flops back down onto his pillow and shuts his eyes, feigning sleep, but Yunho doesn’t need to look at him to smell how into it he is.

So, clothes sharing.

Good to know.

It really would be a shame if Yunho abused this information.

\--

“Really?” Jooyoung-hyung says dryly when Yunho gets in the van the next morning. “Really?”

It’s the 26th. It’s been barely twenty-four hours. Yunho ignores the man and takes his sunglasses off, shoving them in a case for once and tucking them into the first open compartment in his backpack.

Jooyoung-hyung has his passport.

Yunho has ripped jeans, a t-shirt, and a shirt that Changmin definitely didn’t wear for their photoshoot for A-Nation.

He rubs at the rips across his thighs.  

“Well, I guess I’m glad it’s not sweatpants,” says Jooyoung-hyung.

Yunho makes a tiny note to wear sweatpants on his next stopover to prevent the South Korean government from coming after him for fleeing his military service.

“I got dressed in the dark,” he says.

Jooyoung-hyung clearly hadn’t been expecting an answer, but now that Yunho’s gone and shot himself in the foot, Changmin’s manager lowers his sunglasses and raises both eyebrows.

“I… packed in the dark?” Yunho tries again. “You know what. Fuck off.”

Jooyoung-hyung puts his sunglasses back up in time for the van to slow to a halt at arrivals. “You could just get him jewelry instead,” the man says a little too knowingly for Yunho’s comfort. “Oh wait.”

Yunho glowers at him. “Shut up,” he says. “I know it’s the worst kept secret but Chagnminnie doesn’t even know.”

Jooyoung-hyung lifts both hands in surrender.

Yunho keeps glowering at him all the way out of the van, while pulling on his backpack, and up until they’re being met by airport security and directed to head into the airport.

“It’s kind of sweet,” Jooyoung-hyung mutters to him once they’ve flashed their passports, put their shoes back on, and are free to wander the airport in search of their gate. “Even though nobody else will know.” He pauses. “I mean, wasn’t I enough--”

“But I love you, Jooyoung-hyung,” Yunho interrupts prettily, smiling at the man like his life depends on it. “Taking you with me wasn’t calculated at all.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jooyoung-hyung says. “We all see through you.”

Yunho keeps smiling at the man.

Jooyoung-hyung snorts. “Stop that,” he says. “You’ll make me want to run off to join Kyungjae.”

Yunho shakes his head, then brushes his hair out of his eyes.

Changmin’s manager goes back to fiddling with his phone and Yunho’s passport. “Really, though,” he says, not looking at Yunho. “Nobody is going to know.”

Yunho’s stomach flip-flops and he tightens his grip on the hem of Changmin’s shirt. “I’ll know,” he risks.

Jooyoung-hyung is well practiced in the art of pretending to read a plane ticket while actually rolling his eyes at Yunho. “Defeats the purpose, then, doesn’t it?”

Yunho’s stomach tightens. “Changmin’ll know,” he continues, head held high, and goes to park himself in one of the uncomfortable, plastic airport seats for the duration of their stay in Gimpo International Airport.

His phone rings.

It’s Changmin.

Yunho picks it up with as much dignity as he can manage, even as Changmin’s manager stands mostly in front of him pretending to consult Yunho’s passport and totally rolling his eyes some more.

“Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says before Yunho can so much as greet him. He sounds tinny and far away and Yunho feels tension ease out of his muscles immediately.

“Yes?” He fights back a yawn.

“I wore that for a schedule,” Changmin continues.

Yunho shifts in the chair and frowns. “Oh,” he says. He supposes he’s not surprised that the fans have put his photos online that fast, but he is a little surprised that Changmin had been checking. “Do you have an alert on your phone for me?” Yunho’s careful to avoid using Changmin’s name, but he thinks both of them know he wants to be peppering his conversation with pet names. He smirks. “Nagasaki Chanpon.”

There is a mild, growling pause from the other end of the line. “I will kill you,” Changmin says.

“Nagasaki-kun,” Yunho tries instead. “Nagasaki-sama? Nagasaki-san? Chanpon-san?”

“I will _kill_ you--” Changmin says.

“Nagasaki-kun,” Yunho settles for. “Do you have a phone alert set up for me?” He’s switched into Japanese flawlessly, and Changmin follows suit without even pausing for breath.

“I wore that for an official schedule, Yunho,” he says. Japanese doesn’t have an equivalent for Hyung that doesn’t sound like they’re more-than-married-family, and Changmin is totally taking advantage of that fact.

Yunho’s just a shade sleep deprived enough that he has to re-cross his legs to remind himself he’s in public and can’t take that particular train of thought any further. He loses the battle against a yawn. It’s late May. Gimpo has the air conditioning ramped up. The shirt isn’t all that warm, because A-Nation is a summer event.

Yunho really doesn’t care. Delusion says it still smells like Changmin, and delusion is warm and soft and safe.  

“Hyung,” Changmin’s back to speaking their native tongue again.

“So,” Yunho replies, also in Korean. “It’s just a shirt.”

There is a short pause.

“My shirt,” corrects Changmin, tone gone soft. “You’re wearing my shirt.”

Yunho’s breath catches, picking up on the abrupt mood change. “I am,” he says, and shifts in the terminal seat. “Changdollie.” He pauses. “Also, I took Jooyoung-hyung with me.”

There’s another long, soft silence on Changmin’s part.

Yunho’s mostly just trying not to shift in his chair too obviously.

“You’re wearing my shirt, and you took my manager with you,” Changmin says again. “Yunho-hyung.”

“I’ll see you at home,” Yunho manages, throat bobbing frantically. He clicks out of the call.

“Yunho-yah,” Jooyoung-hyung says.

Yunho keeps staring up at the ceiling of the airport, and if he wanted to, he could fish his sunglasses out and put them on to avoid being blinded by camera flashes, not because Shim Changmin had the audacity to flirt at him.

Changmin’s manager--Yunho doesn’t start laughing hysterically--leans over to paw Yunho on the back of the head. “We’re boarding,” he says.

“Changdollie likes it when I wear his things,” Yunho sighs.

Jooyoung-hyung fists him by the nape of the neck. “Yunho. We’re boarding.”

“Ow, fine,” Yunho says, and stands, rubbing the back of his neck. “Hyung.”

“We’re very happy for you and Changmin,” Jooyoung-hyung says immediately. “Now get on the plane.”

Yunho smirks at the man. “You’re just jealous.”

“No, I’d just rather not know the intimate details of how you’re using a shirt.”

Yunho feathers two hands down the front of said shirt, still smirking.

“And _me_ \--” Jooyoung-hyung’s tone could sand mountains. “--as some sort of sex game.”

There is a very pregnant pause.

Myunghwan-hyung, standing next to the both of them, leans in in a hush. “You said ‘sex game’ in public,” the man whispers. He sounds horrified. He looks horrified.

Yunho understands why Jooyoung-hyung has stuck with Changmin since 2012. “You’re just jealous,” he says again, like a broken record.

Jooyoung-hyung sighs. “Unfortunately, yes,” he says. “But so is anyone dating anyone.”

Myunghwan-hyung nods, even though he hadn’t been involved in the conversation until Jooyoung-hyung started talking about sex.

Yunho hums, pleased. “Thought so.”

Jooyoung-hyung sighs once more.

\--

It’s once he’s disengaged from his welcome home from Changmin, naked, sore, and with every inch of him buzzing with post-orgasm energy, that Yunho remembers his plan. He gets out of the bed to locate his toothbrush, tucked into an outside pocket of his suitcase, and ends up instead holding a neatly wrapped orange box, heart racing, and mouth parted.

On the bed, Changmin stirs. “Did you pack Kyungtae?” the man mumbles, no doubt picking up on Yunho’s rather immediate reaction, but also clearly misinterpreting his surprise.

Yunho startles; is the thought of branding Changmin with matching anniversary jewelry really so arousing Changmin could misinterpret the shock for lust? Yes, apparently because once Yunho manages to wrestle his thoughts away from the thought of Changmin wearing nothing but the matching anniversary jewelry, the thought of the younger man wearing something Yunho picked out for him is enough to take Yunho’s breath away.

He abandons the box with iron-clad control and then slips his fingers around his toothbrush. “Changdol-ah,” he manages. “You should know I never take Kyungtae on tour.” Yunho swallows. “Not when I have you.”

Changmin hums, audibly pleased.

Yunho rolls his eyes.

“Mm… thought so.” Changmin stretches languidly. “Now come back to bed.” He shifts under their sheets until they fall down to his waist, pooling sinfully in the dip of his hip bones and doing absolutely nothing to preserve his modesty.

“Déjà vu,” Yunho manages. He abandons the toothbrush. “But… dental hygiene?” he tries to protest, heart racing. “Changmin--”

“Oh, Hyung, let’s not be wasteful,” Changmin croons. He’s definitely crooning. And fingering his own chest, eyes half-lidded, sheets still not covering _anything_ , and meeting Yunho’s gaze full on. “What good would it do for you to clean your mouth right before getting it dirty again?”

The sheets do absolutely nothing to keep the swell of Changmin’s cock from Yunho, smell of arousal hot and heady and bypassing all higher thought the longer Yunho drinks it in.

“You sound like a really bad porno,” Yunho says dryly, even as he rises up off his knees to come padding back to Changmin regardless. Even as his own dick twitches in response. Even as the backs of his thighs start to glisten with physical proof of how very much he wouldn’t mind.

“Mm,” Changmin says, putting both hands on Yunho’s hips as Yunho settles astride him. “You’re still going to blow me,” he says.

Yunho rocks his ass back pointedly, enjoying the slip of silk and skin underneath him. “No,” he says.

Changmin’s lips part in protest.

Yunho puts a finger on them. “You’re going to blow me, though.” He leaves the pad of his middle finger in the center of Changmin’s perfect mouth, trying not to shudder too noticeably when Changmin parts his lips and lets his tongue tease the tiny whorls on Yunho’s skin.

Changmin’s eyes are molten amber.

Yunho grins, still shifting backwards against Changmin’s twitching, naked thighs. The sheets seem to be missing in action.

“I thought you’d like that idea,” Yunho says.

Changmin flips them.

Yunho laughs.

\--

The next time Yunho wakes up they’re no longer on break, and Changmin has about twenty minutes to keep sleeping before Jooyoung-hyung will be knocking on their door with stylists and schedules and the real world.

For two moments, he lies staring at the ceiling, relishing in the rise and fall of Changmin’s chest.

Changmin’s using Yunho as what has to be the world’s most uncomfortable pillow, but he’s so cute about it that Yunho can only smile and try to maneuver a hand across the bed to grab his phone.

His phone automatically uses the flash.

Changmin doesn’t so much as twitch.

Yunho feels bad, for two seconds.

Then he gets distracted, because his phone was what woke him, apparently.

One missed call, it says. From Jihye.

Yunho blinks.

He’s dialling his sister before he realizes that he’s still underneath Changmin in the dark of their room, only twenty minutes before they have to be awake for rehearsals and prep for the Osaka leg of the _Tree_ tour.

“Oppa,” Jihye says. “It’s early. You didn’t need to call me back.”

Yunho blinks a few times. “Are you okay?” he says finally. His voice would sound like he’s just woken up even if he wasn’t whispering to spare Changmin, who shifts and groans, and further burrows into Yunho’s side.

Yunho’s lips twitch up at the corners despite himself.

“Oppa,” Jihye says again. She sounds scolding. “You didn’t need to call me back.”

Yunho stretches a little and watches the way the move makes Changmin’s hair flop to the side. The curl really is a lot. The fans go pretty much both ways on it. Changmin goes pretty much both ways on it depending on what time it is and how drenched through with sweat he is, but Yunho loves it.

Changmin’s hair is long and soft and just curly enough that nobody notices if Yunho’s been yanking on it in between schedules.

Yunho sighs.

His sister is knowingly silent. “You’re with Changmin aren’t you?” she rightly guesses.

As if summoned, Changmin shifts from his spot underneath Yunho’s chin. “Is that Jihye?” he mumbles. “Is she calling me Oppa?”

Jihye snickers in Yunho’s ear.

“She’s not calling me Oppa,” Changmin determines. “Tell her she’s disinvited from the wedding.”

Yunho’s mouth parts on that response. “What?”

Jihye’s stopped laughing in his ear.

Changmin blinks open an eye and squints at Yunho. “Yes?”

“Wedding?” Yunho is aware he sounds like the type of person who woodland creatures follow and for whom men lay down their lives. Yunho is also aware his early morning metaphors are novel-worthy.

Changmin keeps squinting at Yunho. “Yes?” he says again. “Yunho-hyung.”

Yunho presses his lips together. “Changmin-ah.”

“Can I please be allowed to leave this conversation?” says Jihye.

“Hey.” Changmin drops his face back down and noses at the skin above Yunho’s ribs. “You know I’m going to marry you.” His voice is slurred and already halfway back to sleeping but Yunho still feels so weightless he could fly.

“Oppa.” Jihye’s voice drags him down slightly. “Changmin bit you.”

Yunho feels Changmin twitch against him. “Changmin-oppa,” he corrects.

Changmin twitches again, but for entirely different reasons this time.

“Yah.” Yunho feels no shame in swatting him on the back of the head.

Changmin’s head pops up again, both eyes open, mouth curved up into a positively sinful smirk, and not at all fazed by Yunho trying to box his ears. “Hyung is fine,” he says.

Yunho feels heat stripe his cheeks. “Yah,” is all he manages.

“That’ll work too,” Changmin says.

“ _Yah_ ,” Yunho says, strangled.

Changmin blows him a kiss, then has the audacity to lick the fingers Yunho tries to stick in up his nose in revenge.

Yunho is left avoiding eye contact, gaze turned upwards in an attempt to ignore the fact that Shim Changmin is currently sucking on Yunho’s fingers like the world’s best popsicle.

“We’re the same year,” his sister says, thankfully ignoring the both of them, and also a wonderful distraction.

Yunho swallows a few times to get his bearings. “Yes, but he’s February,” he says.

Changmin pulls of his fingers with a pleased hum and settles back down to go to sleep. One of his thighs ends up pointedly right up against Yunho’s naked dick.

Yunho’s throat bobs.

Jihye keeps on with their mother’s infinite patience. “You let Boa-noona call you Yunho, though,” she says.

Yunho opens his mouth.

Yunho closes his mouth.

“Boa-noona’s November,” continues his sister.

Yunho opens his mouth.

Yunho closes his mouth--

“If I let you call me Changmin will you stop making him do that?” says Changmin, lifting his head up so that he can speak into the phone and ending with both elbows stabbed into Yunho’s chest.

“Doing what--” Jihye clearly has no idea what she’s gotten into, but also clearly regrets it.

“I can’t decide if I want to take videos of him and send them to Kyuline or put his mouth to better use--”

“Okay!” Yunho says, frantically, shoving Changmin down and off his chest with one hand and rolling to the side clutching the phone with the other. “Jihye-yah! Hi! Sorry! Why did you call me?”

His sister is silent for a good long while. “You’re lucky I also have a boyfriend, Oppa,” she says.

Yunho feels his overprotective brother instincts trying to rise, but holds it together. “How _is_ Suckhee?” he says.

“Good,” Jihye says. She is fully aware of the fact that she’s as good as poking a bear.

“Are you going to be like this with our children?” Changmin says. He’s lain down where Yunho shoved him, naked and shameless and not even looking at Yunho. “People like to take bets on the internet on who’s going to be worse when our kids start dating.” He pauses and darts a glance up at Yunho. “Not _ours_ ours. But. When we both have kids.” He frowns. “Well, mostly they use that gif of you and Jihye from _Dalgona_ \--”

“Jihye-yah, don’t mate him,” Yunho says, rolling himself to his feet and padding silently towards the nearest article of clothing so that he doesn’t flash a manager on his way to the bathroom. “If you mate him, you’re stuck with him for life, and you never know what kinds of nonsense could come out of his mouth.”

“Jihye-yah, mate him,” Changmin says, getting to his feet as well and swinging an entire arm around Yunho’s neck in a makeshift choke hold, draped all over Yunho’s back and breathing directly into Yunho’s ear.

“Ow--choking--” Yunho says.

“Yeah, can I hang up now?” Jihye says. “Please?”

Changmin takes the opportunity to press an ugly, wet kiss to Yunho’s cheek. It’s audible.

Jihye goes horribly silent.

Yunho, tragically, has never been more in love with the man. “Yes,” he tells his sister, releasing her from her obligations. Changmin grins into his cheek and then kisses him so sweet Yunho can’t help but turn into him. “And I changed my mind--mate him--”

“Goodbye, Oppa!” Jihye says loudly overtop Yunho. “I called because I was thinking I should come to one of your shows, but never mind.”

Yunho pulls away from the hold Changmin had on him with eyes alone. “No, wait, Jihye-yah! You should definitely come to one of our shows--”

“No thank you, Mom says hi and congratulations on the patent!” Jihye says and hangs up on him.

Yunho can’t even be mad at her. He told her she could.

Changmin drops another kiss to Yunho’s neck, and then drops a hand down to grab at Yunho’s dick. “You heard the woman,” he says. “Congratulations on the patent.” His fingers hook a little but they’re just a shade too dry for it to feel more than irritating.

Yunho swats at him and shoves him off, blushing only slightly. “No,” he says. “Bad.”

 _Thank you_ , he’s sure his bowed head is saying. _I’m actually really proud of it and I can’t believe they approved_.

Changmin cackles at him and then falls back against the sheets so hard he bounces a little. “Kay,” he says. “Wake me when we actually have rehearsal.”

Yunho narrows his eyes at him, then makes a show of crossing to grab his and Changmin’s phone. “You know what, I _won’t_ ,” he says, and laughs his entire way out of the bedroom.

Changmin throws a pillow at him.

Yunho ducks and grins.         

\--

It’s Achi-san’s idea. Clearly, the man had been both serious, and somehow managed to convince Sungchang-hyung. And so immediately following their shows in Fukuoka, Yunho and Changmin end up spirited off to Oita to visit the hot springs and also the suspension bridge.

They take three cars shoved full of their dancers, their managers, their bodyguards, and thankfully, absolutely zero camera people or film equipment.

“Nudity,” Jooyoung-hyung had explained.

“Yes,” Changmin had agreed. “And also, my sinuses might finally clear.”

He’s been sick since the 5th, and Yunho feels bad for him. Kind of. The last show, Changmin felt the need to destroy Yunho for the fact that he’s currently running the ‘I’m not cute and you all need to stop calling me cute’ joke into the ground. It was probably in revenge for the pretty blatant flirting Yunho had put into the MC for their first show in Fukuoka, but Yunho doesn’t want to comment.

Regardless, Changmin is excited and while Yunho is a little more subdued, a long soak in healing, steaming water sounds like heaven this far into the tour.

Which is probably why Sungchang-hyung has allowed it to begin with, that, and Changmin’s aforementioned clogged sinuses.

“Are you excited?” Changmin says in Japanese. He’s sitting directly next to Yunho tapping away on his phone probably texting Kyuline.

Yunho had rubbed their little vacation in for Donghae and Hojoon-hyung and Heechul-hyung just before he’d been shoved into the car in the first place, so he can’t blame him. Yunho has also been sitting in mostly subdued silence, rubbing at his eyes.

He’s tired.

This was supposed to be their off day, and while a steaming, healing hot spring sounds lovely on paper, the fact that their entire entourage is going to be there is for once not all the way inspiring.

Contrastly, Changmin seems utterly unaffected. And given he’s the more introverted, Yunho would be surprised.

Yunho mostly just yawns some more and tries to give Changmin his full attention.

“I’m excited,” Changmin says. Clearly Yunho answering hadn’t been all that important, or even the point to him asking. He’d probably been trying to fill the space, which really only hammers home the whole role reversal they’ve got going on.

It makes Yunho snort, thinking about life if Changmin was the one who could have children (they’d have to hope for twins or they’d never get another one out of him), and then brings down his mood a touch so.

Changmin lowers his phone and frowns at him.

“I don’t think anyone can be as excited as you are, Changdol-ah,” Yunho says.

Changmin ignores that and switches languages. “Yunho-hyung.”

Yunho tries to find anything else to look at.

“I am,” Achi-san says when Yunho settles on him. “To get to the bottom of things,” their dancer continues.

It’s enough to give Yunho pause.

Yuuki-san reaches over top of the seat to high five the man.

Yunho gets the joke around the same time Changmin does, because he fights the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose simultaneously with his other half groaning and sloping back in his seat.

Yuuki-san puts a hand on the top of his head in apology but also keeps grinning.

“What if I just tell you?” Yunho asks at last.

Achi-san and Yuuki-san are unfazed, but 50-san leans around to pout at Yunho.            

Yunho’s eye twitches.

“You already did, though,” Changmin says dryly, setting down his phone.

Yunho and their dancers look at him, ears all metaphorically perked.

Changmin scowls. “Last year?” he says. “Was that not the first thing said when we started Time tour rehearsals?’

Yunho mulls that over.

Changmin very gently paws him in the right bicep.

Yunho hisses for effect, then rounds his mouth into an ‘o.’ “Oh--ow--Changdol--”

“Wasn’t it, Hyung? Wasn’t it? Didn’t you just tell the entire world--”

“Wow, we’ve been upgraded to back up dancers for Japan’s biggest Kpop group to the entire world--”

“Changdol--”

For some reason, Changmin keeps hitting him, even though it’s gentle and nowhere near anything vital, and Yunho has to return the favor.

It helps that Changmin’s all muscle and touching him is always a bonus.

Changmin takes that for the challenge that that is.

Yunho sticks his tongue between his teeth and gives as good as he gets, careful to keep from elbowing Achi-san in the side or anything. Their dancer just melds himself to the window and stays out of the fray.

Changmin does the same; he really is too perfect; Yunho goes for the dick this time.

“Ugh, why,” someone in the backseat says--Ryuu, maybe? “Why was this is a good idea again?”

Changmin gets both of Yunho’s hands in his own and grins, wild, unrestrained, and utterly uninhibited.

It takes Yunho’s breath away, so he does his best to convey with just his eyes how very much he’d like Changmin to give him some of that air back via make out session.

“We know it’s Changmin with the mark on his ass,” K-sk-san says loudly. “We all know. You can stop now.”

Changmin turns away from Yunho in protests. “Hey.”

Yunho wrestles a hand free to take hold of him by the chin. “Hey,” he repeats. Changmin’s eyes twinkle; Yunho’s eyebrows lift. “It’s fine. I told them last April.”

He’s still doing the thing with his eyes, only this time he can smell it working.

“Ha, I knew you remembered,” Changmin says. He’s breathless and it gives him away.

“Guilty,” Yunho replies. He’s breathless too. “What are you going to do about it?”

“It doesn’t matter that we know,” 50-san interjects before Changmin can so much as move. He speaks with the utter calm of someone who’s been working with them for years. “We’re just preparing you for the military.”

Yunho blinks, and finally looks away from Changmin. He tugs his hands free, and Changmin lets him go. “What?”

“Communal showers,” 50-san says, smug as you like. He lifts his eyebrows a few times.

Yunho swallows, eyes going wide.

“You’re welcome.”

Yunho’s eyes slip down to his hip despite himself. “Oh,” he says. “Well--”

“Yunho-hyung!” Changmin’s eyes are huge and his cheeks are burning and he’s practically wailing.

Yunho turns to look back at him. “Um.”

“Yunho-hyung!” Changmin repeats, still distraught.

“You, uh, said that--”

Changmin snarls at him, face on fire. “You did this on purpose! I hate you!”

“What--ow--Changdol!”

Changmin’s gone back to hitting him, only this time it’s a hint less gentle. “This is your fault!” he says.

Someone is snickering in the backseat.

Yunho knows better than to look away to see who it is. “Look, at least you won’t have to tell anybody?” he tries. “Like, they’ll just. They’ll just see it in the communal showers--”

Changmin makes a horrified, high pitched noise and somehow manages to blush worse.

“You won’t have to tell anybody!” Yunho says again. He can’t help himself: “Not like how you have to tell your mom--”

Changmin’s eyebrows pull down. “I will kill you and hide the body!” he threatens. “I still haven’t told my mom, and you _know that_.”

“Oh, oops,” Yunho says. He hadn’t known that, but then, at least in his case, his parents had accepted the ‘we needed it to be hidden’ explanation with minimal embarrassment and absolutely zero press for details. Changmin’s mark, while also hidden form the general public, is a whole other can of ‘I _am_ your baby son but also someone is _fucking me_ ’ worms. “I mean, why--”

Changmin stares at him. “It’s kind of hard to sell your mating mark being on your ass as anything other than you bit me during _sex_ , Yunho-hyung,” he snarls.

Yunho deserved that.

Sungchang-hyung, choking in the front seat, probably did not. “Thanks for that,” the man manages. He’s driving the car. He really needs to survive.

Jooyoung-hyung thumps him on the back a few times to try to help. “Think of it this way,” Changmin’s manager says. “They’re getting it out of their systems before we’re at the hot springs.”

Sungchang-hyung clears his throat a few times. “True.”

Yunho continues, unbothered. “Changdollie, you’re supposed to claim during sex. It’s called mating for a reason.”

Jooyoung-hyung is the one hacking in the front seat now.

Changmin glares at Yunho.

“Changdollie, your parents know we spend heats together,” Yunho keeps going, getting into it now. “I think they know we’re having sex--”

“Can we leave him in Oita?” Changmin says, turning away from Yunho quickly. “What if we drown him, and then just leave him at the hot springs.”

Yunho risks early death to drop his head down on his shoulder.

“Or we could throw him off the bridge.”

Yunho doesn’t get shoved off. “Love you too,” he says. “So much that I don’t even feel bad that you’re going to show me off to random strangers.”

“We have a private spring?” one of their dancers says quietly in the back.

Changmin blushes, but he’s still not shoving Yunho off him. Probably because he’s embarrassed, but also because he’s also in love with Yunho and happy to show that off to random strangers. Or, their staff, at least. “Yeah, well,” he says.

“We’re here,” Sungchang-hyung announces. “Please tell me someone brought alcohol.”

\--

A few alcohol bombs later, and Yunho ends up in a corner of the hot spring with Changmin while the rest of their dancers and staff have a whole party around them.

Yunho involved himself in the festivities. Changmin gave them all a run for their money.

Yunho thinks dragging Changmin into a corner (for not at all hidden makeouts and cuddles) was doing them all a service, actually.

Also, with alcohol easing his inhibitions, it’s hard to be around Changmin and naked and not end up giving their entire team a show.

So Yunho tugs him around a corner into a rock face and then gets immediately distracted by how incredibly pretty Changmin is when he’s wet and flushed from all of the steaming.

“Hyung,” Changmin says. He’s not really drunk, but he’s still grinning easier than he would be otherwise. It probably helps that all the teasing about Yunho’s teeth marks on his ass had happened when they were all stripping down to shower off the outside world. Also, Yunho’d been stripping of as well, and his mark being right next to his dick was even more fun to make fun of (although, that was mostly at Changmin’s expense as well.)

At this point, Changmin’s not self-conscious. Yunho would even go so far to say that he’s showing off.

It makes his stomach flip flop.

“Hyung,” Changmin says again.

Yunho leans a hand into his palm and rests an elbow on the side of the pool.

Behind them, someone dunks someone else in the water and the volume goes up a bit.

Changmin’s cheeks can’t noticeably pink because of the heat, but Yunho can tell he’s blushing anyway. “You look like a Disney character,” he mutters.

Yunho lifts a brow.

“Disney? The American cartoon?” Changmin rolls his eyes. “You’re like the _Little Mermaid_.”

Yunho keeps lifting his eyebrows at him.

“Never mind.” Changmin is for sure blushing. “Fuck off, Achi-san brought alcohol.”

“There’s probably like three forks in this entire facility, but I could put some chopsticks in my hair if that would help,” Yunho says.

Changmin gapes at him.

Yunho smirks at him.

Changmin splashes him.

Yunho drops away from the side of the pool and comes in close to cuddle him.

“I hate you,” Changmin ends up telling the side of Yunho’s face rather miserably. “Yunho-hyung.”

Yunho leans in to peck him on the mouth. “No you don’t,” he says.

Changmin sighs. “No,” he agrees. “But Yunho-hyung.”

“Changmin-ah,” Yunho says, still standing directly in front of him in the water. They’re not embracing anymore, but the sounds around them have all practically fallen away. “How is your nose?”

Changmin sniffs somewhat automatically. “Are you asking if I know that Ryu-san farted?” he says.

Yunho swats water at him. “Yah.”

Changmin squints. “Ow, eyes,” he says.

Yunho swats him again.

“Better,” Changmin says, twisting free of Yunho and moving a few paces back towards the rest of them.

Yunho grabs him by the arm before he can do so, then just rubs his thumb along the bones of Changmin’s wrist a few times. He pointedly lets go.

Changmin stays.

“I’m glad,” Yunho says. “The fans had noticed you weren’t feeling well.”

“Mm.” Changmin dips his mouth under and them come back out. “Are you going to get sick after me?”

Yunho tilts his head.

“You were sick first, and clearly we’re taking turns.”

Yunho doesn’t blush. “It is not my fault you couldn’t keep it your pants.”

Changmin comes out of the water like the mermaid he was comparing Yunho and takes Yunho by the hips, pulling him and groping at him until they’re standing so close to each other in the water that Yunho can feel every single one of Changmin’s breaths. “It is your fault,” Changmin says. “You smell amazing.”

Yunho feels shivers start in the base of his spine and follows droplets of water down the slope of Changmin’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he says immediately. “But you too, you know.”

The rest of the group seems to have migrated to the other end of the pool, but nobody spares them a glance or any verbal teasing.

Yunho loves their staff like family.

He turns back towards Changmin.

Changmin smiles at him.

Yunho kisses him again, then pulls back. “Changmin-ah,” he says seriously.

Changmin stops sliding his hands down to cup Yunho’s ass immediately, picking up on the mood. His head shifts.

“I’m sorry I’ve been wallowing,” Yunho says.

Changmin blinks his eyes a few times.

“Complaining,” Yunho commits to. “Making a huge fuss about things we can’t control.”

Changmin’s mouth opens.

“I know we can control it, shut up,” Yunho says quickly. “Changmin.”

Changmin mimes zipping his lips.

“I don’t need to marry you publicly,” Yunho says. “I don’t need to…” He trails, off, not sure how to explain the other part tactfully.

Changmin catches him by one hand and kisses the back of it like that’ll distract Yunho from the entire conversation, then leaves his face pressed up against Yunho’s fingers like it’ll distract himself from the entire conversation.

“My heat came,” Yunho settles for. “So, Doctor-nim was wrong.”

Changmin’s lips part against the back of Yunho’s hand.

“Also, I definitely jumped the gun,” Yunho says. “But you were in rut.”

Changmin takes a moment to think back on that.

Yunho also takes a moment to try not to go too starry-eyed remembering. “I panicked,” he says. “And Doctor-nim did say there’s no reason for me to go immediately infertile.”

Changmin makes a face at him.

Yunho licks his lips, thinking back to that entire hospital episode. “Also--”

Changmin finally lets go of Yunho’s hand. “If you’re about to apologize for the not telling me thing again, I will dunk you,” he says.

Yunho lifts both hands in defense of himself.

Changmin seems appeased

“Anyway,” Yunho says, switching tactics. “I love being in TVXQ with you. I wouldn’t ever want to stop being in TVXQ with you.”

Changmin’s mouth is carefully closed and his eyes are carefully fixed slightly to the side of Yunho’s face, like if he commits to full eye contact, he’ll cry or something.

Yunho wonders if he can blame the alcohol, or maybe the steam. “If I can’t give you a baby that doesn’t mean we can’t have a baby,” Yunho manages finally. “And we have forever.”

Changmin waits a few moments.

Yunho stares back at him a few moments. His throat feels clogged. He wants to sink down all the way into the water in hide.

Finally, Changmin rises to his full height, and steps closer.

Yunho has to look up at him, because Changmin’s like the only person in his life he has to consistently physically look up to; Yunho would be annoyed, but Yunho can’t wait until they start to grow together in reverse.

“We do,” Changmin says. He’s holding it together, but it’s so barely that Yunho knows he’d be getting hell for it if Changmin wasn’t trying not to cause a scene in front of all of their Japanese dancers. “It’s too bad, though,” Changmin finishes after a pointed pause.

Yunho opens and closes his mouth.

“I’d feel bad dirty talking to you about kids, now,” Changmin explains, voice only a little raspy. He’s somehow managing to blush at the hot springs.

Yunho stares. His heart rate speeds up. He sinks underneath the water a little. “Why.” He doesn’t get the word out in any sort of coherent fashion. “Why would you say that?” he asks finally.

Changmin sinks down into the water alongside him but doesn’t meet Yunho’s eyes. Then, gathering himself, he comes in right against Yunho’s ear. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to make you feel bad,” he says.

Yunho doesn’t shiver. He’s in hot water. Shivering should be out of the question. “Oh.”

“Wouldn’t you feel bad?” says Changmin.

Yunho darts a reflexive glance towards him, regrets that, and keep staring at a distant rock over Changmin’s shoulder.

“If I told you I was ready to take you home and _breed you_ full of cock until you were practically _sobbing_ for it, wouldn’t you feel bad?” Changmin says.

Yunho’s soul feels like it’s ascended alongside the steam coming off their hot spring.

He very slowly begins the process to extricate himself from Changmin without making any eye contact. “No.” His voice is high. “No, that’s fine. You can still do that. Hosik-hyung!” He raises his voice and starts wading his way desperately back towards their dancers and managers. “Changminnie and I are ready to go home now!”

Hosik-hyung takes one whiff in Yunho’s general direction and scowls, arms crosses across his naked chest.

“Gross, Yunho! Changmin!” someone shouts.

Changmin just lounges back against some conveniently placed rocks and grins. “You’re all just jealous,” he says.

“Sure!” another person shouts. “Sure! Why did we invite them, again?”

Yunho scowls at them, and goes back to sit beside Changmin, leaning into the other man’s side, and making the executive decision to stay in the water for as long as physically possible.

“You suck, Changdol-ah,” he mutters.

“You wish,” Changmin replies.

Yunho feels absolutely zero remorse in dunking him, nor in convincing their dancers to engage in an elaborate game of who can shove Changmin’s head under water the most times.

\--

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so excited for the fics that come after this so I GOTTA FINISH THIS THIS WEEKEND!!!!! Comments, kudos, and retweets are the best inspiration.
> 
> [Tumblr masterpost](http://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/176820026740/right-now-you-and-i-are-clumsy-but-youre) || [Twitter masterpost](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1027681441113665537)


	13. flow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Hexmen and Kinah. Sorry for the delay. I wanted to finish 14 before I posted this, and I have, so expect that Thursday as usual!
> 
> All other mistakes are my own.

**13\. Flow**

\--

The World Cup doesn’t even start until Thursday, and already Yunho is going to kill Changmin. Their sleep schedule is awful enough on its own but add in Changmin’s inability to stop texting every single person he knows back at home in preparation, and the fact that he seems to be prepping for the time difference so that he can stay up after concerts to watch the games, and Yunho is well and truly done with the entire thing.

Even their dancers have gotten in on the excitement. Changmin gets interrogated about his pick for who’s going to win and who he wants to actually win at the jacket shoot for their late summer single. They quiz Yunho too, but Yunho is much more blasé about the whole thing, and already itching for the entire spectacle to be over.

“We’re literally so many hours ahead that it’s ridiculous to try to watch, Changminnie,” he says.

“Uh huh,” Changmin says. He seems perpetually attached to his phone, probably pestering Minho.

Yunho kind of wants to say something shitty and terrible about that FIFA game Changmin hasn’t played since Minho beat him that one time. He holds his tongue.

Changmin keeps typing into his phone, hunched over on their couch looking not that different from an extremely attractive raccoon. The living room is in complete darkness, Changmin’s illuminated by his phone alone, nobody shaved him since they haven’t had official schedules since they got back from Oita, and still he’s the most lovely thing Yunho’s ever had the misfortune of sharing a life with.

And he’s ignoring him, and not coming to bed with him, and Yunho is ready to file for divorce on those grounds alone.

“You’re not allowed to sleep with me until the World Cup ends,” says Yunho.

Changmin stops typing.

Yunho feels very, very smug.

After barely a moment, Changmin continues typing. “Okay.” He hasn’t even looked at Yunho all day. “We have two bedrooms, anyway.”

Yunho fights the urge to take the man’s phone from him and fling it into the sea. “Fine,” he says.

“You should sleep, Hyung,” Changmin says. “Osaka, soon.”

“Three days,” Yunho tells him, trying for a rise.

“Oh yeah,” Changmin says. “Goodnight.”

Yunho doesn’t murder him, but it’s a near thing.

\--

To his credit, Yunho lasts most of the three days. They really don’t have any pressing schedules before they’re due to start the last few shows of the _Tree_ tour, and Yunho takes advantage of the lull to schedule some much needed rest and recovery. He does a Skype call with his doctor, loudly and with the door open, in hopes that Changmin will disengage from the internet and his sports friends to listen in, but then gets far too distracted grilling he man about the ins and outs of not ending up in the hospital again because of sprained ankles (“One of the nurses is a fan and has been telling me you’re saying you’re ninety-percent healed. Tell me that’s a lie.”), and then, tentatively, broaching the still-a-little-sore subject of April 2015.

“I mean I’m going to be enlisting anyway,” Yunho says, since nobody had given him a definitive date, given his leg, and his tour, and the suspension SM has managed to keep pushing through to allow Yunho to film his late summer drama. “So… I mean conjugal visits are a thing, right? We’re not heathens.”

His doctor’s voice pinches a little but he stays on track well enough. “Honestly Yunho-yah you’re young,” he says. “People are having children later and later every year--the technology is getting better and better every year--”

Changmin wanders by Yunho’s open doorway still on his phone while munching loudly on a crisp-looking apple.

Yunho nearly throws his phone on the floor in his haste to end the call. “Thank you, Doctor-nim, really,” he says, bows a few times because habit is habit is being polite, and tosses the thing onto his bed instead. He didn’t make it this morning, in part because he was honestly too unfairly tired after tossing and turning and missing Changmin to fall asleep before midnight despite the fact that he could if wanted to, and also in hopes that the state of his room might lure Changmin off his World Cup high and into Yunho’s waiting, eager arms.

Changmin didn’t stop in the hallway or anything, so Yunho has to get up and go and find him in his room, relocated to the center of his own, pristinely made bed, still munching on the apple.

Yunho wants to share the good ‘we can still have children probably if my heat comes on schedule next year’ news with him, but for some reason, that really feels like cheating.

He ends up standing awkwardly in Changmin’s doorway.

After a few bites, Changmin looks up. “Did you need something?”

“You’re an asshole, Changdollie,” Yunho says, and stalks away before he can make even more of a fool of himself.

“I knotted you last month when you finished crying in the shower!” Changmin calls after him.

Yunho grinds his teeth a few times in response. “I am going to _lock the door_ \--”

“Hyung, look.” Changmin’s lost the apple and the phone and has finally come to stand in front of Yunho with wide, innocent eyes. “It’s really exciting. It only happens once every four years. We qualified--”

“Changdol.” Yunho doesn’t put his hands on Changmin’s waist like they both clearly want him to. “I am really just as excited as you are.”

Changmin practically glows.

“But I also value sleep--”

Changmin physically dims.

“And it is impossible to sleep when you’re tapping away and muttering to yourself--”

“I do not mutter to myself,” Changmin protests. He hooks his hands behind the small of Yunho’s back and tugs their pelvises together.

“You talk in your sleep,” Yunho tells him happily, trying not to be too blatantly pleased to be finally getting cuddles. “This is a known fact.”

“You’re a known fact,” Changmin tells Yunho, cheeks flushed.

“Whatever. You’re impossible to sleep with.”

Changmin narrows his eyes at him. His hands are smoothing over the fabric of Yunho’s shirt like he wants it off.

Yunho is just tired enough to let him. “Don’t say anything,” he says.

Changmin widens his already wide eyes.

“Don’t say _anything_ ,” Yunho says again.

Changmin starts to back them towards his bedroom. “I haven’t actually said anything,” he says, darting a quick glance behind to make sure they’re not about to run into any furniture that isn’t the bed. “Yunho-yah.”

Yunho stops fighting him for fun and starts following after him more in earnest. “You were thinking things.”

“Yes, but what have I said about mind reading?”

“That it’s irrelevant if I don’t communicate with you?” Yunho tries, not really focused on anything but the prospect of having Changmin’s tongue in his mouth. “Changdollie.”

Changmin goes thumping back onto his mattress with the air knocked out of him and his hands falling away from Yunho’s sides. “Oof,” he says.

Yunho looks down at him. He yawns. He doesn’t want to yawn.

Changmin’s gaze sharpens. “You really don’t sleep well without me,” he says.

“Yeah, shut up,” Yunho says, embarrassed, and climbs on the bed over top him. He hovers kneeling over Changmin for a moment, trying to decide what to do.

Changmin makes up his mind for him with helpful, clawing hands; Yunho falls forward onto his chest with a hidden smile and is perfectly content to stretch out over top Changmin with another yawn.

“God,” he says. “I hate being angry at you. It’s bad for my sleep schedule.”

Changmin drifts fingers through Yunho’s hair so softly it’s like an afterthought, but it’s so calculated and soothing and calming that Yunho knows he’s doing it on perfect purpose.

He moans. It’s only a little bit for show, and to make Changmin’s breathing change and his fingers clench in the hair at the nape of Yunho’s neck.

“I could buy you a sleep mask?” Changmin tries. “I could get you earplugs? You sleep like dead on airplanes and in cars, Hyung, what the hell--”

“It’s because you’re there and you’re awake and it makes me restless,” Yunho tells the skin of his throat. It’s really an uphill battle to be doing anything but sleeping now that he’s got Changmin underneath him. “Sorry about your dick,” he apologizes anyway, since that was sort of why they’d come in here in the first place. “I’ll make it up to you both later.”

Changmin’s definitely laughing at him.

Yunho really doesn’t care.

“Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says after a few seconds more of peaceful calm. “Are you sleeping?”

Yunho doesn’t respond to him, settling for sighing his breath out in even, calming waves. He’s syncing with Changmin. It’s not even a conscious decision. How apt. How perfect.

“Right,” says Changmin. “So, I know you don’t want to wallow about it.”

Yunho keeps from tensing by exhaustion alone.

“But if you want to talk about it--really talk about it--I think we should, yeah?” Changmin’s still stroking through Yunho’s hair only now he got a hand resting on the small of his back again, under his shirt without even asking and somehow not at all sexual, only calming. “Like we don’t--”  

Changmin stops talking like he doesn’t even know what he’s trying to say and Yunho tries to get his eyes open.

“What you said,” Changmin says. “About wanting to have more time to love yourself.”

Yunho’s breath catches.

“You don’t need to be in heat to do that,” Changmin finishes, finally. “You don’t. I mean we. We talk about… things… in bed.”

Yunho finally lifts his face out of Changmin’s neck and stares at him. He’s probably red in the face, squinting, and not at all attractive.

Changmin’s fight or flight response still ends up spilling over into the roof of Yunho’s mouth.

“Changdol-ah,” he says. “Could you do this when I’m not running on only four hours of sleep?”

Changmin stares up at him with twin spots of color in his cheeks. “We’re always running on four hours of sleep. Sometimes even _three_.”

Yunho glares at him.

Changmin closes his mouth guiltily.

Yunho kisses it, because he can, and he wants to, and it’s there.

Changmin curls a hand on the back of his head because he can, and _he_ wants to, and it’s there.

Yunho sighs.

Changmin sighs.

The room spins.

“We should get more oxygen tanks,” Yunho says, after a while. “For Osaka.”

“Or you could stop kissing me,” Changmin says.

“I don’t have to be kissing you for you to make me breathless, Changdol-ah.” Yunho pulls away from Changmin’s lips again and lies back down. “But say that thing again?”

“What thing?”

Yunho hits him in the chest.

“Ah. Right.” Changmin’s a big baby and a ham and he plays it up when they’re on camera and also when they’re alone. Yunho thinks it would be nice if the next time the fans made compilations of him swiping at Changmin, they included the absolute hissy fit the other man throws immediately following. It’s adorable, it’s almost unsightly, and Yunho has never loved him more. “I mean you said it was okay if I talked about breeding you, so I guess I just mean--”

Yunho interrupts him by putting a hand over his mouth and looking up at him with embarrassment high on his cheeks.

Changmin’s eyes flash in response; he keeps talking, getting steadily filthier, to the point where Yunho doesn’t even want to look at him, and is instead thinking of throwing him out of his own bedroom this time for reasons that aren’t an inability to log out of the World Cup.

Changmin licks the palm of Yunho’s hand.

Yunho glares at him, but even he can tell that nothing about his scent is putting Changmin off. “That is so unfair,” he says.

Changmin keeps grinning at him, so wide Yunho can feel his teeth.

He gives the man’s face one last smoosh before pulling his hand back. “I should wash your mouth out with soap.”

“Mmm,” Changmin says. “I think you should let me eat you out first, then, don’t you think?”

Yunho buries his face in the center of Changmin’s chest and shouts half-heartedly a little bit.

“There there.” Changmin’s patting him on the back. “Deep down you love me despite my perversions.”

“I love you _because_ of your perversions,” Yunho tells him sulkily. “They match mine perfectly--”

“And here we are, back at the crux of the matter,” Changmin says simultaneously. “Yunho-hyung.”

Yunho risks peeking out at him, mouth still hidden in the cotton of Changmin’s t-shirt. His chin is probably digging into the man’s breastbone, and that can’t be comfortable; Yunho doesn’t move.

“You are who you are because you’re an omega, but you’re also more than that. You’re _more than that_ \--”

Yunho leans up to kiss him to stop him before he hurts himself, because Changmin’s gone pink and embarrassed and also serious and furious and passionate like no one else in Yunho’s life ever will get. “I know,” he says, and it’s true. “I really do love you, Changmin-ah.”

“Right.” Changmin’s retreated behind the safety of just plain embarrassment, now, but also keeps darting eyes between Yunho’s mouth and eyes like he wants more kisses.

Yunho is perfectly happy to oblige him, but first. “And it’s not like now is the time, anyway.”

Changmin blinks back at him, more than a little lost.

“For twenty-five children,” Yunho says.

Changmin sucks in a startled, gasping breath at him.

“I want to keep doing this with you forever, but realistically, I think they can get a few more years out of us afterwards.”

“Afterwards.” Changmin has at least stopped looking quite so sorrowful about the fact that Yunho isn’t kissing him like he clearly wanted him to. His lips twitch.

“You’re a genius,” Yunho tells him, leaning in for another peck because it turns out he has even less self-control when sleep deprived. “We all _know_ , Changminnie--”

“One day I’ll go on some sort of education program and _show you_ \--”

“We already did _God of Victory_ and everybody kept shouting ‘You fool!’ at me for weeks,” Yunho protests. “Why would you wish this upon me?”

“Me,” Changmin repeats. “Me. I will go. Just me--”

“But Changdol we always go together,” Yunho pouts, because he can, not because he’s serious. “Wouldn’t the fans get upset?”

Changmin looks at him with a visible twitch to his eye.

Yunho risks a grin.

Changmin scowls at him. “Go to sleep, Yunho-hyung,” he says. “We have a show tomorrow, and you haven’t been sleeping well, weren’t you saying?”

Yunho sets his head back down on Changmin’s neck. “Mean,” he yawns.

“Honest,” Changmin replies.

“Mean,” Yunho says. He’s all the way to sleep, not for the rest of the night, since it’s not even night, but for a few hours of naptime at least.

He still ends up retreating back to his own room several hours later because the phone thing _really_ isn’t showing any signs of stopping, but he goes considerably less exhaustedly, and with half a spring in his step.

\--

 At two a.m., Yunho gives up.

He gets up, rubs his eyes, yawns so loud he swears the entire apartment complex feels it, and wanders down the hallway and into Changmin’s room.

Changmin’s lying on his back in bed, covers down around his waist, shirtless because it’s summer and Yunho maybe drooled through the shirt he had on earlier. He’s on his phone, that bastard, but he looks up when Yunho arrives.

Yunho stays in the doorway for a little bit just looking at him, trying to decide if it really is worth it to use him as a pillow when he’s so goddamn bony.

“You’re just all muscle, Changminnie,” he says a little mindlessly, stuck on the notch of Changmin’s six pack. Maybe it’s more like an eight pack. Gosh, if Yunho wasn’t so tired, if Changmin wasn’t such a sports fanatic, maybe Yunho would have the energy to count them with his tongue.

“Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says.

Yunho decides sleeping is better than not sleeping. “Move,” he tells the Changmin lump.

The Changmin lump doesn’t move.

Yunho sighs. “Never mind.” He stumbles into the room and towards the bed. It feels a little like sleepwalking, so Yunho closes his eyes because he figures why not. Changmin’s neater than he is so it’s not like he’s going to trip and fall over anything.

“Oh. Hyung. What?” Changmin says, somewhat surprised. He barely gets the phone out of the danger zone before Yunho has finished climbing back on top of him with little concern for not stepping on anything vital and not kneeing Changmin in the groin. “Hi,” Changmin says.

“Mmm,” Yunho says. “Who are we playing?” He’s finished sprawling himself contently onto the younger man’s bed, and it’s amazing how immediately calming it is to be surrounded by Changmin’s blankets and pillows and Changmin himself. “Are we winning?”

Yunho can feel yawns starting from what feels like behind his _eyeballs_. Somehow, he manages to avoid slobbering all over Changmin.

“Yunho-hyung. The World Cup doesn’t even start until Thursday. That’s why you kicked me out to start with--”

“Ah, kay, glad we’re winning, then,” Yunho says overtop him, kisses him once on the throat, and is asleep.

\--

“This is your fault,” Yunho says to Changmin, the next morning. It’s June 11th, they’re backstage in Osaka, Sam-san has already finished making last minute adjustments to the technical side of the show, and Yunho and Changmin are tucked away in a dressing room without any audience to frown at them.

Changmin’s in a chair, Yunho’s standing, and someone has left a bountiful fruitbasket on the table in front of them.

Every few seconds Changmin eyes a mango on the top like he wants to say fuck his waistline and swallow it without even chewing.

Yunho’s tired enough from the night before that he’s having trouble figuring out if the strawberries are missing because their staff doesn’t love him or if he accidentally ate all of them without knowing.

He not so surreptitiously brings an index finger to his mouth to suck, trying to figure out if he can taste strawberry juice.

Changmin watches him do that with barely concealed horror lining his brow. “Um, what?” he says.

Yunho puts his fingers down like he’s been caught with his pants down. “What, no, not that, shut up,” he says a little desperately, wiping his hands on his stage pants and wincing. Shit, well, he hadn’t tasted like fruit and his white pants are still white and spotless and nobody has to die before Yunho can take the stage at Kyocera Dome.

“It’s your fault,” Yunho says again. “Not the. Not the hand thing… pretend I didn’t do that.”

Changmin stares at him with his mouth parted. “Are you okay, Yunho-hyung?”

“I’m tired,” Yunho tells him. He wants to curl up in the nearest chair in their waiting room and go back to sleep. “And it’s hot. And it’s all _your_ fault.”

He wants to point at him. He doesn’t point at him. He keeps his hands safe at his side and does his best to glare at Changmin.

Changmin is still looking back at him. “Is this you being a sap, again?” he says. “Because I had to practically bribe Heechul-hyung for that one--really, Hyung, _Icarus_ \--and I don’t really want to have think about that.”

“What?” Now Yunho is the one with narrowed, confused eyes. “What?”

“I’m like your own personal sun, or whatever,” says Changmin. “Is that why it’s my fault you’re hot? Or am I supposed to be making the whole of Hiroshima humid by virtue of my own personal attractiveness?”

Yunho would punch him in the arm if he didn’t think that would end with Changmin grabbing him and rubbing all over him to the chagrin of their very harried, already frantic staff. The show starts in twenty minutes, and the fans are already in the venue.

“I’m tired,” Yunho says again. “That’s definitely your fault.”

Changmin blinks. “We haven’t even been sharing the same bed,” he protests. “I haven’t seen your dick in days--”

Jooyoung-hyung does a full one-eighty out of the dressing room they’ve set up residence in exclaiming, “Nope, they’re ready for pre-show speeches but _nope_ , I am not going in there--”

Yunho tunes him out, too busy blushing and trying to keep meeting Changmin’s half-bemused, half-sorrowful eyes.

“Hyung.”

“Yeah, well.” There’s really no way to go about this with dignity, Yunho realizes. Nobody else has been in and out of their apartment since they got back from Oita, so nobody else knows that he and Changmin have been sleeping in separate beds. In fact, all anyone else knows is that Changmin’s been on some sort of end of tour health kick, even though he’s stripped enough to last a lifetime in the past three months.

Yunho hasn’t told anyone that Chagnmin’s been waking him by aggressively working out or aggressively being on his phone.

Yunho hasn’t told anyone that he has trouble sleeping without Changmin.

Nobody would believe him.

They’ve all taken photos of him with his mouth open in airport VIP rooms and waiting areas and every single Japanese dome.

Yunho has no way to go about this while _winning_. He should have just not started the conversation in the first place.

Changmin is still looking at him curiously, but knowingly now. “Oh my,” he says.

“Shut up,” Yunho says. He stands on only slightly shaking legs and yawns some more, already sweating in their elaborate ‘Champion’ costumes. “Let’s ignore me.”

“No, Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says, standing after him and following him out of the dressing room in search of their dancers and camera crew for behind the scenes team huddles and speeches. “You don’t sleep well without me.” How dare he act like they hadn’t been over this the night before in the privacy of their own home.

Yunho flushes and twists nervously at the fabric of his cape. “Shut up.”

Changmin looks at him like some sort of cartoon character. “You do!” he says, a little bit of an oxymoron. “You do!” He’s also like a moron in general, with manic, flaming eyes, and just a hint of hysteria to his voice.

Yunho kind of wants to dunk him in ice water before the show. “Yeah,” he admits, finally, because there isn’t anything else he can do. “And you know that, and you still wouldn’t put your phone away--”

“This sounds like the sort of shit I complain to my kids about,” a manager-san mutters to the side of them. “I get why some of their fans think they’re that kind of family--”

“Some of their fans think they’re that kind of family because they’re literally stuck in the past,” another manager-san interjects sharply, with a head shake.

Yunho doesn’t so much as stop walking but he still reaches out to high five the man gleefully.

The first manager-san rolls his eyes.

Yunho grins, still turned towards his bemused looking soulmate. “But I mean, you’re my soulmate, so,” he says, voicing the fact. “Of course, I don’t sleep well without you.”

Someone audibly opens their mouth.

“It doesn’t count when I haven’t had access to my own bed and privacy,” Yunho tells whoever it is.

That someone audibly closes their mouth.

Changmin is a blushing, startlingly quiet mess at Yunho’s side.

Yunho doesn’t know what to do with him. He looks like how he looked when Yunho told him on stage in front of all their fans that the reason he wasn’t running his spur of the moment jokes by Changmin in advance wasn’t because they were spur of the moment (“One day your adlibs are going to bite us both in the ass, Yunho-hyung, _honestly_ ”) but was instead because of the frankly adorable look on Changmin’s face when he hears them for the first time.

Sure, Yunho would get to see that firsthand backstage prepping for the show, but somehow it’s better on stage, in front of thousands, when Changmin has to visibly fight not to look to in love with him.

Changmin has gone silent and sulky and flushed.

Yunho grins, glad to be feeling more solidly on the ground now. “Yeah,” he says. “I don’t sleep well without you, but why are you even surprised about that, Changdol?”

Changmin speeds up.

Yunho follows him. “I mean _you’re my soulmate_. We are _one soul in two bodies_ \--”

Changmin’s ears on fire by the time he nearly collides with Sam-san, who glances between the two of them with infinite and wonderful patience.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up, Yunho-hyung, shut up,” Changmin rushes out in Korean, frantically.

Yunho grabs him by the hand and swings it between the two of them for the two times that Changmin allows it. “Also, it’s not like I wanted to kick you out.”

Changmin scowls. “It’s not my fault you’re not like literally every other man--”

“Person, Changdollie,” Yunho points out helpfully. “My sister is almost worse than you--”

“Normal _person_ ,” Changmin concedes, “and willing to lose sleep in the name of patriotism--”

“You’ve seen that bit by that English comedian, right?” Yunho says, glad for once that Heechul-hyung likes to stay so appraised of culture. “It’s all about money--”

“It is about _patriotism_ \--”

“If we are done talking about the World Cup,” Sam-san interrupts loudly. “You have a show to do.”

One of the dancers whispers to another dancer. “Oh they were talking about the World Cup. I thought they were talking about their sex lives--”

“Please don’t say that in front of them they might take that as permission,” another one says.

Yunho grins so wide it feels like his face is going to split in half.

“Don’t you dare,” Changmin says, and tightens his grip on Yunho’s hand so that Yunho can’t get it free. He turns to Sam-san. “You were saying.”

Sam-san is unimpressed. “A show,” he says. “You have to do the show.”

“Right, yes,” Yunho says. “But in my defense. It’s really, really hot.”

Sam-san is somehow even less impressed.

“Fine,” Yunho says. He makes Changmin blush at least three times, mixes up the Japanese ‘hot’ for ‘cold,’ and determines that no matter how awful it is trying to sleep next to someone cursing out all of their colleagues in preparation for a world soccer tournament, it’s worse being sleep deprived because that cursing someone happens to be the love of your life.

\--

Yunho has to fly back two days before Changmin to make a hair appointment and another screen test for _The Night Watchman’s Journal_. Normally that would be fine, since they fly separately all the time, but this means that Yunho has to leave Japan on the 23rd of June instead of the 25th, and the 25th--Yunho realizes within horrified, curse-filled seconds--is their anniversary.

So, the bracelet he’s been carrying around for six months is going to go to fucking _waste_ , or Yunho is going to have to give it to Changmin early.

“It’s sweet regardless,” Boa tells him over the phone when Yunho calls her. “Also, I’m going to hang up now, because you’re so in love and I haven’t had a date in years.”

“I’ll introduce you,” Yunho tells her hurriedly. “I promise. I--do you like? People taller than you?”

Boa practically snarls at him into the phone.

Yunho pulls it away from his ear worriedly. “I mean you’re very short, so--”

“Hanging up on you now,” Boa tells him. “Bye.”

Yunho listens to the dial tone and chews on his lower lip. “Shit,” he says emphatically. He sets down his phone. Maybe he could call Heechul-hyung--

“Don’t you have a flight?” Changmin says, wandering out of the bedroom in sweats, a black tank top, and an oversized grey scoop neck.

Yunho has the irrational and sudden urge to steal the clothes off his back.

As if sensing it, Changmin takes a step back. “Yunho-hyung.”

“I do,” Yunho says, eyes stuck on the skin of Changmin’s perfect neck. It’s so pretty and unblemished and kind of like a swan. Yunho kind of wants to gnaw on it a little bit, until everyone knows someone is fucking Shim Changmin, and then wants to let it bruise and go yellow-green so he can do it all over again so that everyone knows that someone is _loving_ Shim Changmin.

His stomach knots a little. He’s not wallowing. He knows that he’s more than just the ability to have children. But it still stings, a little, the uncertainty.

“So… are you planning on wearing your pajamas to the airport?” says Changmin, which is a wise point.

Yunho is standing in the middle of their living room in his boxers and a t-shirt, phone clutched in one hand. His suitcase is packed and waiting for him.

Changmin’s bracelet is still in the front pocket.

Yunho swallows. “When is your flight?”

“The 25th,” Changmin produces, blinking a few times. “Our anniversary.”

Yunho’s stomach flip flops pleasantly.

“If this is a test, I mean,” Changmin says. “Hyung. Can you at least change shirts?”

Yunho crosses the room to dig around in his suitcase, all nerves. “Look, Changdol.” He unzips the compartment, locates the orange box, and tugs it free. “If I give you this can you promise not to open it until the 25th?” He crosses to hand it to Changmin, holding it between them almost anxiously.

Changmin takes it from him immediately. “You got me something?” He sounds excited. “No,” he adds, unwrapping it instantly.

Yunho balks. “Changdol--”

But Changmin has already discarded the lid and gone for the wrapping.

Hermes did well, the thing is well wrapped and well made and by the time Changmin is holding up the bracelet, Yunho’s accepted he as good as married an idiot. “It’s for our anniversary,” he says somewhat redundantly. “I meant can you not open it until our anniversary.”

Changmin lets the bracelet slip between his fingers so that it glints and catches in the light. “I’m not celebrating our anniversary without you,” he says immediately. “It’s been _one_ year.”

Yunho bites at his lower lip. “I mean. Maybe we should call it the 3rd?”

“I told you I loved you June 25th, Jung Yunho,” Changmin tells him very seriously. He’s clasping the bracelet around his left wrist at the same time. “Do not take this from me.”

Yunho very suddenly is having trouble finding air. “Sure,” he manages.

It’s just jewelry. Yunho bought it because of The Celebrity, because it was something he would know meant Changmin was his and that Changmin could parade around with on display in a way that wasn’t just stealing PR clothing off the floor of Changmin’s dressing room to wear to and from airports.

But somehow it’s more than that, because it means Changmin is _Yunho’s_ , in a secret, perfectly simple way. Even though no one else will know. Even though Yunho absolutely cannot wear the matching bracelet.

He swallows so hard his throat hurts a little. “Strip,” he says.

Changmin finally manages to tear his eyes away from his wrist. It’s the left one. It’s the wedding one. Yunho wants to go back in time one year and punch Son Hojoon in the face a few times, and then maybe visit his weeping, broken 2005 self and tell him that it really does get better.

Changmin pulls off both shirts.

Yunho drops back into reality abruptly, flushing. “What--”

“You said strip,” Changmin says, muffled by the shirts. He goes to hand them to Yunho, realizes Yunho is having none of that, and settles for dropping them on their coffee table instead. “These are yours anyway,” he says.

Yunho stares at him. “How did you know?”

“That you were going to put on my clothing like an absolute creep and show up at Gimpo looking like a vagabond?” Changmin says.

Yunho gets a little bit lost in the skin of his thighs, creamy and not at all unblemished because nobody can see them when Changmin wears stage costumes or shorts, and Yunho has poor impulse control when Changmin has his tongue up his ass. He was supposed to have been giving a reciprocal blowjob. Changmin should be grateful all Yunho did was mess up his thighs.

Yunho accepts the sweatpants this time. Pulling them over his boxers is easy.

Changmin keeps standing in their living room wearing nothing but underwear and Yunho’s anniversary bracelet.

It makes Yunho’s entire stomach burst into butterflies. “I get what you were saying about me wearing your clothes, earlier,” he says.

Changmin watches Yunho pull off his t-shirt, and then pull on his two shirts. He steals the t-shirt without pause and sticks his head through the head hole at the same time Sungchang-hyung walks into the apartment with both hands over his eyes.

“Listen,” Changmin says, only one arm into the shirt sleeve, turned around to stare disapprovingly at the display by their Japanese team leader. “Yunho-hyung and I actually do our best not to get caught in uncompromising situations--”

“You are literally _swapping clothes,_ Changmin-ah!” Sungchang-hyung announces to the room at large. “ _Swapping clothes_!”

Changmin finishes pulling on Yunho’s t-shirt. “And early anniversary presents,” he says, giving his wrist a wave.

Yunho swallows.

Changmin catches that and he grins, eyes glinting to match the metal circling his wrist. He smells like home, and love, and mischief. Yunho would miss his flight for him.

Sungchang-hyung goes back to hiding his eyes. “And now you’re making _eyes_ at each other,” he says.

“I’m just going to miss Changminnie so much,” Yunho says.

“For a full two days,” Sungchang-hyung says. “A full two days and then you have the same schedules since you’re in _a band together_ \--”

“Actually Yunho-hyung is going to be busy filming his drama,” Changmin says, reaching out to straighten Yunho’s hemline like he cannot help himself. “You know. That period one for MBC that everyone’s been _only_ congratulatory about--”

Sungchang-hyung lifts both hands like he’s been less than congratulatory behind Yunho’s back, and Yunho is happy to note that his skin has thickened considerably since 2013, and he doesn’t think much of it. Becoming the first idol that he knows of to successfully be issued a patent might do that to you. Getting basically married to the proven love of your life helps as well.

Yunho stares down at Changmin’s left wrist with baited breath. It really fits perfectly. Yunho might not have measured and Heechul-hyung and Donghae might have scared him shitless over that, but it fits like Changmin could wear it until even the fans could grow tired of it. And some of the fans have supported all of Changmin’s fashion choices, including the frankly appalling faux fur monstrosity he somehow sweet talked out of Dolce and Gabbana themselves.

Changmin’s done with the hem of Yunho’s shirt, but he keeps his hand resting on Yunho’s right hip.

Yunho smiles at him.

Changmin smiles back.

Sungchang-hyung sighs at them but his eyes crinkle when Yunho and Changmin turn towards him. “You’re sickening,” he says.

Yunho doesn’t kiss Changmin. “I’m ready,” he says instead, going for his suitcase.

Sungchang-hyung grabs it from him. “Sunglasses,” he says, handing them to Yunho. “It’s sunny.”

“Have fun,” Changmin tells them both, plopping himself down on the couch. “I’m just going to jerk off now.”

“That bracelet cost more than most of your favorite shoes. Don’t you dare use it as a cock ring,” Yunho snaps before he can help himself.

Changmin’s eyes go huge. “Yunho-hyung,” he says. He sounds like he’s actually proud of Yunho.

Yunho would be proud of Yunho, if it weren’t for the fact that Sungchang-hyung is currently still in the apartment with them.

Like a telepath, Sungchang-hyung hauls Yunho’s suitcase out of the apartment. “See you at the car.”

Changmin is still staring back at Yunho with proud tears practically spilling out from the corners of his eyes.

Yunho opens and closes his mouth a few times. “Never mind,” he decides on finally. “See you.”

He shuts the door on Changmin’s cackling.

\--

 _I see you gave Changdollie the bracelet_ , Heechul-hyung texts him, on the 25th.

Yunho hasn’t seen Changmin yet, because he’s been too busy running errands for the man (Cofica was a nice shop so Yunho’s not mad, per say) and getting his hair dyed black for _The Night Watchman’s Journal_.

He pauses in his living room when he gets Heechul-hyung’s text and blinks down at it. _Is Changminnie home_?

 _Yep,_ Heechul-hyung’s reply is instant. _It’s good a look for him._ He pauses like he’s smirking or something. _Married_. The enunciation and emphasis comes through loud and clear in less than four characters. He fires off a few paparazzi shots from Changmin at Gimpo.

 _Haha_ , Yunho replies to him, before clicking them open. _Very funny_.

“Oh,” he says, once the first one loads.

Changmin’s got a hand on his backpack in one picture, the other carrying his passport. He’s wearing jeans Yunho knows he’s had since at least 2010, a white t-shirt, and a denim jacket. His hair is long and losing its dye job at the roots and it falls in plane-waves from its asymmetrical part. Yunho’s bracelet is there, on his left wrist, exactly where Changmin left it three days prior.

Like clockwork, Yunho’s phone dings with a new message from Changmin, this time. _If I don’t see you before you have to go back to Tokyo for your fanmeet, happy anniversary, Yunho-hyung. And stop jerking off about the bracelet; no I didn’t use it as a cock ring._

 _Shut up_ , Yunho fires back. _I love you_.

Changmin sends him a heart emoji.

Yunho saves all the photos.

\--

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favorite line is the perversions exchange. I forgot I had written it until I looked over this for the final edit.
> 
> Kudos, comments, and retweets make my day!
> 
> [Tumblr masterpost](http://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/177212530585/right-now-you-and-i-are-clumsy-but-youre) || [Twitter masterpost](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1031351376700473344)


	14. wave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg so. We made it everyone! This is where this fic was supposed to end back when it was only one fic--so it really is meant to be read in one sweeping span from **[My heart has changed after meeting you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13546152/chapters/31079514)** through to the end. 
> 
> Much love and thanks to Hexmen, without whom this really would not exist. Kinah made the most lovely gifs, bounced all of the ideas around even when she was busy working or staying up way too late b/c timezones. Aixing sent a lot of Siwon reaction images. 
> 
> Finally, massive shout out to everyone who left comments--I really appreciate and enjoyed getting to read them and respond to you all.
> 
> Betaed by Hexmen. All other mistakes are my own.

**14\. Wave**

\--

Tentative peace on the childbearing front gives way to what Yunho hates to admit is probably a standard idol schedule. July into August into September into most of October is filming for and the airing of _The Night Watchman’s Journal_ , which means hanboks and hair extensions and Changmin making whimpering noises and grabby hands at both of those things. The experience isn’t new, but it’s nerve wracking to be back on the acting scene, especially once the show starts airing and the reviews start trickling in. Nobody ends up being Sangwoo-hyung and Yunho doesn’t feel close enough to anyone to want to get a new matching car with them, but his co-stars are still kind and lovely and fun to be around. Nobody drags him over the coals for his ‘foot acting.’

By the time it’s December and _The Night Watchman’s Journal_ has seen Yunho dead and revived, Yunho is finally starting to feel a little less on edge and a little more like a person.

“I feel refreshed,” he tells Changmin on their way out of Thailand for the next set of dates on their interestingly planned out T1ST0RY Tour. “Like a new man.”

Changmin’s got on sunglasses and a Mickey Mouse shirt and a perpetual, kiss-flushed frown. His mustache has grown in a little. “That’s good,” he says, tone even in contrast to the pissed off vibe he keeps sending towards the various fans snapping photos of them from several floors up in the Koh Samui airport. “I mean you did shout so loudly that last round that Jooyoung-hyung will literally probably never speak to us again.”

Yunho doesn’t flush at him, instead scuffing his designer sandals against the airport tile and carrying on unbothered. “We had the honeymoon suite.”

“We didn’t have the honeymoon suite,” Changmin says. “It was just like a honeymoon--”

“We had a honeymoon guide--”

“We did have a honeymoon guide,” Changmin has to concede. “But Jooyoung-hyung booked him.”

His manager turns around to look at them both with an unimpressed expression. “He spoke Korean and Thai and was very helpful for the entire shoot,” he says.

“Yeah,” Changmin and Yunho chorus. “And he was also a honeymoon guide.”

Jooyoung-hyung doesn’t even deign that with a response.

“Anyway,” Yunho tells Changmin. “You fucked me in the jacuzzi with the bubbles on.”

Changmin’s cheeks flush. “Hyung!” he hisses. “They’re filming you!”

Yunho turns his back towards the fans. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Changmin says. He even goes so far as to bear his teeth a little up at the adoring crowd.

“Lets go,” Jooyoung-hyung says, finishing whatever it was he was doing. “Our flight is on time.”

Yunho starts to follow after Changmin’s manager, still a little pink-cheeked. “You did, though,” he tells Changmin. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Sure,” Changmin says. He doesn’t meet Yunho’s eyes behind the sunglasses.

Yunho frowns at him behind his own shades. “Changmin,” he says.

Changmin starts following their managers without further comment.

Yunho wants to hold his hand. He can’t, so he settles for lengthening his stride to follow alongside him, barely a step out of sync. “Changmin.”

That gets him a look, so tiny that nobody else could tell, but Yunho is the other half of Changmin’s soul, so he notices. “What crawled up your ass and died?” he mutters, the idiom rolling off his tongue a little brokenly because of the language change.

Changmin’s lips quirk.

Yunho finally feels himself start to flush. “Changdol--”

“ _You_ ,” Changmin purrs, peeling off the sunglasses and giving Yunho the kind of look that usually prefaces rut.

Yunho manages to somehow to retain his dignity. “I didn’t die,” he says. They’ve almost made it to the gate, finally, and now it’ll be waiting and flying and then rehearsals and performances before they’re due back in Japan for at least five different live television specials in promotion of _With_.

Changmin is still looking at Yunho like he’d like to eat him. “You did a little,” he says. “Isn’t that what they call it in France?”

Yunho will kill him for sure.

“Le petit mort?”

“I hate you,” Yunho tells him instead, lengthening his stride once more to match himself to Jooyoung-hyung instead. “Please distract me from the travesty of bad puns I married myself to.”

Jooyoung-hyung isn’t so much as phased. He doesn’t even look up from his phone when he replies, “They’ve been checking your mail, and your date’s come.”

Yunho blanches, but not at the mail thing. That’s a given, when you’re famous. Half the time he’s at Changmin’s, half the time he’s in Japan, and even beyond that, he’s been camped out in the bowels of SM prepping for their latest concert. It’s the date thing that stops him, even as he keeps walking and talking and letting nothing color his tone. “Oh?”

“For mid-April,” Jooyoung-hyung says. “Beyond the tour,” he adds, without prompting. “You have to go.”

Yunho wets his lips. “It is December,” he says. “I am thirty.”

“Twenty-eight,” Changmin says, suddenly on Jooyoung-hyung’s other side, and suddenly serious. He’s got the sunglasses back down over his eyes, and the lines of his back are hard and brittle.

Yunho wants to put both hands into the dips there, dig his nails into the skin until Changmin goes white and pink and _hisses_ , and then rolls over so that Yunho can sink down on his dick and ride him until he doesn’t have the capacity to frown anymore, let alone be sad.

Something of this must show on his face, because Changmin’s hands tighten on his backpack straps like he wants to hold Yunho’s hand. He can’t, of course, because even if Jooyoung-hyung hadn’t been walking between them, not even the safety of the private side of an airport is really private. Not when your own home is public knowledge, in some circles.

“Yunho-hyung,” Changmin breathes, less chastisement, more reproach.

Yunho startles, but keeps moving.

“Whatever,” Jooyoung-hyung says, oblivious to the inner monologues going on around him. “Your date is mid-April. After the tour.”

Yunho nods.

Changmin mutters something about how they really ought not to be saying that out loud.

Jooyoung-hyung finally lowers his phone. “The last two days are the first and the second,” he says. “We’ve already sold tickets. When are you due?”

Yunho blinks.

Changmin blinks.

Myunghwan-hyung, silent, foreboding, guarding, and walking just a step closer to Yunho in what ought to be mildly offensive habit, pauses.

“When am I… due?” Yunho says slowly. Some tiny part of him sparks in terrible, joyous rage.

Jooyoung-hyung colors. “Shit,” he says. “Not--”

“That,” Changmin intercedes quickly. “Not that.”

They share a look.

Yunho’s too busy wrestling the part of him that wants children more than anything back down into a frail, pre-flame thing.

“We try to avoid April, usually,” Jooyoung-hyung says. “You were April this year.”

Yunho realizes. “Oh.”

“April Fools,” Changmin says, to be helpful. They both sink into two chairs by the gate.

Jooyoung-hyung follows suit in the one across from them after a mild pause.

Myunghwan-hyung clears his throat and stays standing.

“I was early April,” Yunho says, thinking of their most recent additions for Tokyo Dome. The domes are hard to book, and the fact that the fans had leapt upon the newly added seats had been both flattering and something Yunho and Changmin and SM were starting to realize was a given. “Shit--”

“Just take pills until then,” Changmin says, and his voice is careful and even and not at all what it had been two days before, sprawled across a bed that felt the size of the airplane and as soft as the clouds they’d be flying through shortly. Yunho doesn’t remember much from Koh Samui. The sights, the heat, the beach, being sat on a rockface and told to eat popsicles, maybe. But his nights were the real treasure, under Changmin, over Changmin, learning the wonders of infinity pools and island resorts and the slow, soft warmth of knowing that whatever future they’d go walking into they’d be doing it together.

Yunho’d texted Youngjin-hyung that morning before they flew back. He’d perched on the bed by the windows looking out at their tiny sliver of forever and mumbled on about how he wanted a song like that for the next one. The album after their gift album. The gift album was full of the songs they hadn’t put on _Tense_. The one for after was something that Yunho wanted to be a mix of things.

He’d said something about infinity and parallel lines.

Youngjin-hyung told him to come back when it was 2017 and Yunho had stripes.

Yunho has digressed, now, lost in thought and staring at the airport ceiling.

“Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says, bringing Yunho abruptly back into the conversation. “Are you okay?” He looks like he wants to ask if he’s fucked Yunho’s brains out. He doesn’t.

Yunho is grateful; Changmin most certainly _has_.

“Pills,” he says, a little louder than he’d intended.

Jooyoung-hyung very helpfully coughs, and the more dedicated fans, who’d somehow ended up on flights around them, make a show of not watching and circling and stalking.

Yunho looks away with ten plus years of practice, but Changmin’s lip curls back a little.

“I’ll take them until we’re finished with the tour,” he says.

Changmin pulls his gaze away and onto Yunho. “Yes,” he says. “That should work.”

Jooyoung-hyung looks unconvinced. “Uh huh.”

“I’ll be doing that anyway,” Yunho says. “No way we go on tour without both of us on suppressants.”

Jooyoung-hyung’s head tilts in concession and agreement.

“Standard policy,” Yunho says. “But I should stop them immediately after.”

Changmin nods, even as his brow furrows. “Why--?”

“I’m not doing twenty-one months without one at all,” Yunho says pragmatically. He has the good graces to speak around the issue, but also the sense to force the issue. “It wouldn’t be healthy.”

Jooyoung-hyung looks at the two of them like they’re barely out of high school. “You’re mated,” he says quietly, lips hardly parting. “No government will separate you.”

Yunho blinks.

Changmin blinks.

Myunghwan-hyung hides a smile behind a massive paw, and finally sinks into the seat next to Yunho. He cuffs him on the back.

Yunho sways like the expensive looking palms they’d walked under and tries very hard not to sink too deeply into Changmin’s side. It’s fine if he stays here, one shoulder touching Changmin’s arm. Myugnhwan-hyung pushed him, and they’re close. It would be weird if he flinched away. And their bodies hide them, keep the general public from seeing how the hand Changmin had resting on his thigh curls up to trace patterns against Yunho’s flank.

“Babies,” Myunghwan-hyung says.

Yunho grins at him. “Cubs, you mean?” he says. “If you’re Papa Bear.”

“Cub One and Cub Two,” Myunghwan-hyung decrees, gesturing.

Changmin scowls: “Why am I two?”

“Because you were born after,” Yunho says, at the same time Myunghwan-hyung says. “You’re smaller,” and Jooyoung-hyung says, “you’re cuter.”

Changmin stares between them, clearly not sure who to attack first.

He pinches Yunho in the side, hard.

“Ow,” Yunho says, smile not slipping. He pulls free of Changmin’s grip on him and leans into Myunghwan-hyung instead, rubbing at his ribs. “Claws, Changdol-ah.”

Changmin sticks his tongue out at him.

Jooyoung-hyung seems bemused. “My point is it’s not like you have to go two years without one,” he says, bringing the conversation right back around.

“But not in our bed,” Yunho says, tone mild, head tilted, and in time for their flight to start boarding. They’re economy this time, so they won’t be the first ones called to stand.

The staff around them are already doing so, though, and Yunho sighs.

Changmin uncrosses his long, long legs, mouth a frown.

“It’s better if I bring it on right before,” he says. “Did they say what day? Whoever it was?”

Jooyoung-hyung frowns as well. “Mid-April,” he says for what feels like the tenth time.

Yunho kind of wants to smack him.

Changmin actually growls at him.

Jooyoung-hyung lifts up both hands. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

“Don’t _bite_ the messenger,” Yunho amends, and he’s trying for teasing, but he ends up sounding far too jealous for that.

Changmin glances at him, cheeks warm.

Yunho won’t meet his eyes. It’s safer that way. “We should push it back again,” he says. “Just until after.” _My heat_ is the end of that sentence, and it cuts off only because they’re in public. Yunho almost startles when he realizes. There’s no shame in it, no unnecessary guilt or the tiny, undying spark of self-hatred. His father loves him and supports him and would fight Shim Changmin for him. Changmin would go to his doom by Yunho’s father’s hand if Yunho asked. There is no room in Yunho’s heart for self-hatred.

It is _startling_.

Yunho would sit, were he not seated. He seals his mouth instead.

Changmin stands, one hand on the armrest like he’s steadying himself. He’s touching Yunho, stroking along his arm like a careless, accidental gesture of closeness. It’s calming and perfect and everything Yunho wants in the world.

Jooyoung-hyung is utterly unbothered by them. “Pushing it back is fine by me,” he says. “Between album promotions and two tours, more time would be lovely.”

“And profitable,” Changmin points out daringly, and gets swatted.

Yunho snickers.

\--

It doesn’t come up again, _really_ , until 2015. The company had felt no need to push things, given his date was so late and well after the tour, but by the time they were mid-February, Jungmin-hyung tugged Yunho aside to discuss the fact that the South Korean military had been surprisingly… accepting of the excuse.

Not that it was an excuse.

Jungmin-hyung had been very quick to correct that mistake, which was good. He’d cornered Yunho after Changmin’s birthday with the news, and Yunho had rolled his eyes and patted him on the back like ‘Hyung. We announced the Shenzhen dates. Those are mid-April. I’m not an idiot,’ while also smoothly walking him out of sight of the still-high-on-life-after-having-cake-thrown-in-his-face other half.

So, they’d been cleared for T1ST0RY dates into April, and confirmed they’d be part of the all-star line up for the Korean Music Festival in Los Angeles (Yunho’s excited to go back west, definitely, but Changmin’s a massive baseball nerd who couldn’t shut up about how the Dodgers had a game that same week and he was going, no questions asked.) so Yunho had honestly just thought he’d be going in June or something.

Maybe May, if they wanted.

Which is why when they’re on a flight back from Hawaii and ten minutes from being let off the plane, Yunho is blindsided by Sungchang-hyung, who helps Yunho grab his carry-on for absolutely no reason and stills him with an arm to wait for Changmin and company to come off the plane.

“Hyung,” Yunho says, curious, because it’s Japan and Bigeast never outwardly photograph them for general consumption, and they’ve got filming the next morning at Huis Ten Bosch. He’s tired. He kind of just wants to get through baggage claim and go home.

Changmin’s a big boy. He doesn’t need to be waited for.

Sungchang-hyung keeps a hand steady on Yunho’s arm. “The military says you don’t need to enlist, if you don’t want to,” he says.

Yunho remembers very suddenly that Sungchang-hyung works for SM, foremost, even though he is with them most often in Japan. “Hyung,” he says, at a loss. “Isn’t that good?” It’s not, because special treatment is special treatment and Yunho’s going to say ‘no thank you’ in the most non-public way possible, but Sungchang-hyung sounds like he’s come to give Yunho horrible news.

“No,” Sungchang-hyung says. “Yes.” He shoots Yunho a truly apologetic look, one hand still on Yunho’s arm. “Shit, Yunho-yah, I--”

“You didn’t have to wait for me,” says Changmin, filing off the plane with Jungmin-hyung and Hosik-hyung in tow. He’s got his leather jacket on and his flannel around his hips and his hair is still half styled from the _Stay_ photobook shoot.

He’s eyeing the two of them curiously, but Yunho can’t help but notice how Changmin can’t help but notice how Sungchang-hyung still has a grip on him.

Their Japanese team leader doesn’t so much as flinch, but he does start them walking.

Yunho gets it. When it was just him and Sungchang-hyung, they could excuse it as waiting for Changmin. Standing in the middle of the tunnel to the plane isn’t the best place to be loitering, even though most everyone alongside them only speaks Japanese.

“They said you don’t have to go because you’re an omega,” Sungchang-hyung explains quickly in a rush, and without meeting Yunho’s eyes.

Yunho tugs them all to a halt, heels digging in. “What?” he says. He doesn’t recognize his voice, almost.

Changmin darts a rapid glance around them, and steps like he’s going to get between Yunho and Sungchang-hyung.

Yunho starts walking again immediately, warning him off with his eyes in time for two girls to come walking by with their heads ducked together and giggles escaping between conversation. They clearly know who they’ve been sharing a flight with, but Yunho is glad to see neither of them have their phones out.

“Hyung,” he says, still addressing Sungchang-hyung.

The man looks incredibly sorry. “We explained that you’d rather a later date than April--May would work--because of heat and they, uh--”

Hosik-hyung takes pity on him. “There’s precedent for mated omegas being excused from service,” he says quietly, voice quick, to the point, and targeted carefully for a lull in passengers coming off the plane.

Changmin’s grip on his backpack straps goes white knuckled.

“Ah,” Yunho says.

They’ll be out in the open soon. Yunho finds he doesn’t want that, for once. He slows again.

Everyone follows his lead. “Yunho-yah?” it’s a Japanese bodyguard, brows pulled together.

Changmin seems to make up his mind. “Meet us at the hotel,” he says, without looking back at Yunho. “I’ll be seen.” And then he’s gone, strode out among the public without so much as waiting for their managers and bodyguard to follow.

Jungmin-hyung makes a panicked, strangled noise, and goes after him with a quick smile in Yunho’s direction. “Changmin--wrong way--!”

Yunho has déjà vu, Sungchang-hyung lets out a long sigh, and Hosik-hyung and their bodyguard follow Changmin as well.

Yunho _loves_ him. And he’s fine, mostly, but he’s not sure he could stomach the conversation, if Changmin had stayed. “Hyung,” he says quietly.

Sungchang-hyung finally lets him go, and Yunho realizes for the first time that the grip the man had on him was tighter than he’d realized.

His bicep feels cold, like band of ice where Sungchang-hyung’s hold had been.

“Is that because they’d rather I be home having babies?” he says straightforwardly. He meets Sungchang-hyung’s gaze head on.

The older man looks truly sorry. “Yunho-yah,” he says.

Yunho nods. “Ah,” he says again. He blinks, then manages a smile. “Do you think they’ll get our bags, or do we have to sneak around Narita airport even more?”

Sungchang-hyung looks at him warily but allows the subject change. “Text Changmin,” he says. “He did say they’d meet us at the hotel.”

Yunho grins back at him, only a little subdued. “Right,” he says. “I say we sneak for the car before anyone sees us.

Sungchang-hyung bumps shoulders with Yunho. “Deal.”

\--

“It’s a stupid law,” Yunho says, into the phone. Filming’s been canceled because of the surprising number of fans gathered, but SM had swapped mission cards on them and told them they could still film something, especially since the stylists had taken the time to do their hair and makeup.

The camera crew is gathered in the corner of the vacation house, conferring with each other over the latest mission card Yunho and Changmin will have to do, and Yunho is taking the moment to phone Donghae. This is expensive and probably not a good waste of his funds, but honestly, all he’s wanted to do since he’d arrived to the apartment in Tokyo.

D&E have promotions and music programs but Donghae is, for once, the only one of Yunho’s friends who would understand.

He’s gone quiet.

“Donghae-yah,” Yunho says again. “Are you there?”

“Yeah, Hyung.” Donghae’s voice still sounds quiet. “Fuck. Are you serious?”

“You hadn’t heard of it?” Yunho says, glancing to his right at Changmin, who’s taking lounging in the chair thing they’ve been sharing to the next level. He’s got his legs sprawled so they’re touching Yunho’s, his head leaned back against the seat (scrunched up to be short for once in his life) and he’s on his phone, typing so quickly Yunho almost gets whiplash. “You’re going this year too.”

That stills Changmin’s fingers a little, but otherwise he gives no notice he’s eavesdropping.

Yunho knocks their knees together a little.

“That’s right, we are,” Donghae says around a yawn.

“Early shoot?” Yunho says, apologetic. “Sorry. Mine was canceled.”

“We have Sukira tonight,” Donghae says. “Ryeowookie is going to kill me if I mess up.”

Yunho snorts. “You always mess up,” he says.

“I know!” Donghae sounds aghast about it. “Hyukjae’s just going to laugh at me.”

Yunho grins. “That’s because he loves you,” he says.

Donghae sounds pleased. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “But tell me more about our country’s favoritism?”

Yunho scowls. “It’s not favoritism, it’s prejudice,” he snaps.

At his side, Changmin stills even more. He keeps both thumbs on the phone, but when Yunho looks, it’s clear he’s not even typing anymore. In fact, in thirty seconds, the screen goes dark. It lights up with messages from Kyuhyun and Minho immediately following, but Changmin doesn’t do anything to respond or even read them.

Yunho mulls that over, lip caught between his teeth.

“Oppa!” someone calls out, from his side.

Yunho schools his features guiltily, even though he’s not even wearing a lip tint for this shoot. Just chapstick and foundation.

“Oppa?” Donghae says in his ear. “I thought your shoot was canceled?”

Yunho turns towards the stylist-noonas and nods once apologetically, then lowers his voice to a hush. “Hae-yah,” he hisses. He’s turned towards Changmin for privacy because Changmin’s Changmin. Their arms bump up against each other, and now they’re basically pressed together from shoulder to thigh and someone is definitely going to shout at them and threaten to get a ruler to keep them apart so that the mission card reads as good friends who are like family and not good friends who are also married and like family.

“What?” Donghae is clearly unapologetic. “You’re the one people are calling ‘Oppa.’” He pauses. “Unless that was Changmin. And you really do have a unscheduled off day. And I’m going to go, now, because gross, Yunho-hyung--”

“No, wait, we’re not--we’re filming a mission card--”

Someone sets a plate of cheese down in front of them just out of frame, and Changmin finally straightens from his way too-still scrunch.

Yunho can’t help but snort at him. “You’re like a dog,” he says.

Changmin rolls his eyes. “You’re the one chasing frisbees on camera.”

Yunho glares at him. “Two years ago.”

Changmin grins.

“ _Two years ago_ ,” Yunho says again, a little incensed now. “Changdol--” he pauses, darts a look around, and gnaws briefly on his lower lip again-- “--oppa,” he finishes.

There is a startled, almost proud sounding bark of laughter next to Yunho’s right ear.

Changmin goes a startled, shockingly bright red.

“Bye, Hyung,” says Donghae. “Text me later about how you’re going to enlist anyway because fuck the military and their ridiculous prejudices about omega men--” He hangs up, still laughing, but Yunho is too busy staring at Changmin. It’s like if Changmin looks at Yunho, he might do something supremely stupid, like kiss him in front of all their staff and with their hair and make-up just so.

“Yunho-san,” a Japanese stylist says, tone gentle, but still scolding. She leans into frame and frowns at Changmin, who takes the gaze evenly, despite the flame of his face.

The heat leaves his cheeks after a few moments because he’s a professional, but it catches on the shells of his ears like it can’t quite help itself.

Yunho watches him with his silent phone still stuck to his ear. “You really like that,” he says.

“Shut up and look at the damn camera,” Changmin says through gritted teeth. “They want us to try cheese.”

“I think they’re going to give us five minutes for you to get yourself together, Changdol,” Yunho says dryly. He tries not to laugh too noticeably when Changmin practically jumps at his name. Like he thinks Yunho is going to drop gendered honorifics into casual conversation for more than just poking fun at Donghae.

“Shut up,” Changmin says again. “It’s your fault.”

Yunho lifts a brow. “Yes, I did say the thing,” he says.

Changmin finally turns at glares at him. “Not that,” he says. He reaches for his water bottle and unscrews the cap before taking a large, cheek-puffing gulp.

Yunho blinks back at him. “What, then?”

Changmin keeps glowering at him, but his cheeks are going red again.

“Yunho-yah!” Hosik-hyung calls. “Stop flirting and be a professional.”

Yunho lifts both hands. “I’m not flirting!” he says. “I’m just talking!”

“You were talking about the military,” Changmin manages finally, even as he crosses his legs and arranges himself dutifully in front of the camera to start the mission. “It is your fault.”

Yunho settles into frame and glances at him once, curiously. “The military?”

“You used your leader voice,” says Changmin, with a razor-sharp smile for the camera.

“Cut--give them five!” Hosik-hyung says, to a chorus of groans around them.

Yunho just gapes at Changmin. He’s the one flushing now.

“Oh yeah,” Changmin says, still grinning full of knives. “It’s not fun on the receiving end, is it?”

Yunho clears his throat a little. “Hosik-hyung,” he says in Japanese. “We’re filming here again, tomorrow?”

Hosik-hyung pauses. “Yes?”

“Wouldn’t it be easier if Changmin and I just stayed here, instead of going home.”

There’s a pause.

Yunho keeps meeting Changmin’s suddenly blazing eyes.

“It’s a hundred and twenty thousand yen a night,” someone mutters.

“They’re spokespeople,” someone else mutters.

“They are going to _fuck_ in the guesthouse of the hotel they are spokespeople for!” someone else hisses.

Changmin’s eyes somehow manage to burn even brighter.

“Hosik-hyung?” Yunho says again.

His manager swallows. “Fine,” he says. “Now can you just eat the cheese?”

Yunho looks away from Changmin at last. “Sure,” he says brightly. “We’re ready when you are.”

“Action!” someone says.

“So,” Changmin starts, looking at Yunho.

“So,” Yunho says. He brandishes the mission card. “Today’s mission is mission forty-four.”

\--

“You’re lucky I won Rock Paper Scissors,” Changmin says, once their staff retreat for the night to leave them alone in the frankly gorgeous suite. “And also, I can’t believe you weren’t going to listen to me about _food_.”

Yunho settles himself into the center of the massive bed and stares at Changmin, still standing over by the table looking unfairly smug.

Yunho yawns. “We won,” he says.

“Only because I won,” Changmin says. He reaches the bed in five strides and wastes no time in getting on his knees. “You said it was number five.”

Yunho watches he crawl his way closer on the bed and shivers a little. “It had a cool name,” he says. “Long.”

“Long,” Changmin repeats. “Long.” In Japanese now, so that the word breaks in two and the vowel sound lends itself to aegyo. “Old Dutch Master Cheese.”

He’s reached Yunho on the bed now, come to hover of top his thighs smelling like Yunho’s favorite cologne and also, amusingly, cheese. “Yeah,” Yunho breathes. “That.”

Changmin settles across his thighs with a smirk. “Hyung,” he purrs. “I forgot to say--you were genius, getting us the suite for the night.”

Yunho swallows. He’s finding it very hard to speak, suddenly. But then, would anyone be able to speak, with all one 184 centimeters of Shim Changmin perched across your lap, hair styled gracefully off his forehead. “Changdol--”

Changmin has the audacity to rock a little across the stretch of Yunho’s thighs.

Yunho’s still wearing the jeans and the v-neck sweater over an undershirt to keep his nipples from arriving to filming, but Changmin’s all buttoned up and pristine looking, down to his perfectly tailored slacks and the socked feet on either side of Yunho on the bed.

Yunho puts his hands on Changmin’s ankles because Changmin’s ankles aren’t Changmin’s ass, and Changmin’s ass should be very much off limits when they have schedules the day after. But they’re alone in a hotel worth a hundred and twenty thousand yen a night, and Yunho wants to make the most of it.

“Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says. “You’re not listening to me.”

Yunho blinks up at him. “Well, were you just rubbing it in that you’re better at cheese tasting than I am?” he says. “Isn’t that a given? You’re a glutton for food, and also, you love wine.”

Changmin settles more solidly across Yunho’s thighs and bats his lashes a little. “Rubbing it in,” he says back. “Glutton for _food_ \--”

Yunho should smack him for the pointed grind of his ass on that word. “Changmin--” His voice breaks.

“I do love wine.” Changmin says. He puts one hand on the bed by Yunho’s right hip, so close to the bite flaring to life there that Yunho is suddenly stifling in only a v-neck and an undershirt. His jeans are far too tight. But it helps, because Changmin has their cocks rubbing together through the denim and the polyester or whatever.

Yunho manages somehow to scowl at him through the sudden haze of lust. “You are awful, Shim Changmin,” he says.

Changmin just keeps grinding into him. “But you love it,” he says.

“I love you,” Yunho says, and flips them over in a practiced, immediate move.

He has a feeling Changmin was expecting it, or at least, wanted something of it, because the other man goes willingly, shifting up the bed so that his head meets the pillows, and settling perfectly so that when Yunho ends up pinning him down, they’re still cock to cock and chest to chest.

“Changdol-ah,” Yunho says.

Changmin gets an odd look on his face, and for two seconds Yunho wants to pursue the ‘oppa’ thing, now that they’re unsaddled with Jihye or the doom of Yunho’s ovaries.

But then he turns his attention back further, to when he was growling into the phone to Donghae, and Changmin went board stiff and stopped replying to Kyuline.

Changmin is board stiff now, but in a different way. Yunho wants to rub up against him until they’ve both ruined their clothes, and the walk of shame the next morning includes a laundry bill and being unable to look their stylists in the eyes for the next few weeks.

“Yunho-yah,” says Changmin. His eyes keep slipping closed.

Yunho realizes he hasn’t kissed him all day. He remedies that, leaning in for what he wants to be a simple, easy sort of peck, but ends up deep and probing because Changmin sighs and moans and opens up so immediately and sweetly that for a second Yunho can’t help but think Changmin is the one who can have babies.

But then it’s like Changmin has heard him, read his mind, stolen the words from his open, kissing mouth, because then there are fingers in Yunho’s hair and against the imprint of teeth on Yunho’s hip and Yunho is the one startling, and sighing, and moaning.

“Yunho-yah,” Changmin says again, voice a low rumble.

But it puts things back into perspective, designation talk helping Yunho back to where he’d begun when he first went to pin Changmin.

“Changmin, what did you mean earlier?” he says into Changmin’s mouth.

Changmin releases his grip on Yunho’s hair and stares up at him. He’s a little glassy eyed and his lips are swollen but he still practically oozes control in a way that Yunho finds he very rapidly is becoming addicted to. He thinks he knows who’s going to end up on their back wailing for it, but he also has a feeling that whoever it is is very much going to be in charge still.

“What did I mean earlier?” Changmin asks.

“When you said the military--”

Changmin’s expression darkens again.

“When you said me talking about the military--”

Yunho keeps breaking off and it’s not helping his case for being the one with he reins (but he kind of wants it, for once, because what fun it would be to flip the roles only half of the way… or… something… Changmin’s got fingers against Yunho’s mate mark and it’s very hard to think, let alone manage full sentences). “Changminnie.” It’s a gasp more than a name, and Changmin stops clawing at Yunho’s hip bones with a sly grin. “What did you mean when I was talking about the military?” Yunho asks again, finally.

Changmin leans up and kisses him so softly that Yunho’s heart stutters. “It was hot,” he says. “You talking about the military.”

Yunho blinks. “Um.”

“You were so angry,” Changmin says. “You used your leader voice--”

“Right. About that. Changdol. I love you, but my leader voice is for _work_ \--”

Changmin kisses him again, this time less sweetly, but no less heart-stoppingly.

Yunho makes a muffled, almost pained noise and kisses him back before he can help himself, sinking into the slope of the man. “Changmin,” he gets out.

“They tried to tell you what you were, Yunho-hyung,” Changmin purrs out against Yunho’s mouth. He puts his hands back on Yunho’s hips and this time he’s under the sweater and the undershirt and he’s two seconds from shoving under Yunho’s waistband and Yunho yelps and moans and tries to figure out if it’s even possible for him to palm Changmin’s ass in order to even the playing field.

“Changmin--” He’s breathless and begging and how long has it been, honestly, since they were truly alone. Heat, maybe? New Years they were at MBC and _With_ tour they were surrounded by staff and _Stay_ they had _things_ to do and Yunho can’t think, really, not when Changmin is kissing him and touching him and loving him.

“They told you you couldn’t enlist because you’re an omega, Yunho-hyung,” says Changmin.

It makes Yunho’s chest ache a little and he scowls. “It’s bullshit,” he says.

Changmin shifts his hands away from Yunho’s hips and around to the small of his back, shoving at both shirts. It’s cold in the room. Yunho shivers. “It is,” Changmin says.

Yunho keeps going. “Just because I mated you and I can have your babies doesn’t mean I get a free pass,” he snaps. “I’m a man.”

Changmin gives him a look and Yunho kisses him to keep him quiet because he doesn’t know how to talk about it yet.

“I know,” he says when they pull back. “That law is dumb too.”

Changmin is thankfully silent.

Yunho reaches out to palm him by the cheek. “Yah,” he says. “You wouldn’t want your sisters to go, either.”

Changmin gives him a wary, betrayed sort of look, and starts to pull his hands out from under Yunho’s shirt.

“Hey, no,” Yunho says, flopping more solidly against him and trying to keep his touch. “I’m cold. Changdol--”

Changmin stops retreating but grabs the hem of Yunho’s sweater to pull down instead, one brow raised.

Yunho ends up practically re-clothed, still hard as a rock, and lying solidly on top of Changmin in a way that isn’t really sexy and is mostly just dead weight. Dead aroused weight, but dead weight.

His mate glowers at him.

Yunho kisses him on the nose. “Changdol,” he says.

Changmin sighs but laces his hands behind the small of Yunho’s back. “Change the subject?” he decides.

Yunho narrows his eyes at him. “But it made you so hard,” he says petulantly. “You even had to cross your legs and make the manager-hyungs wait five whole minutes.”

Changmin is back to blushing up at him, eyes dark and angry. “I crossed my legs because I look good when I cross my legs--”

“You kept huffing the cheese and giggling like a pervert,” Yunho says. “You couldn’t have cared less about your image--”

“I did not!” Changmin says. “And also, you smelled it too--”

“Because you did, Changminnie, please,” Yunho says. “What sort of person do you think I am? I don’t go around smelling cheese--”

Changmin snarls up at him in time for Yunho to shove the v-neck off, leaving him in the undershirt and the too tight jeans. It does a number on his perfectly styled hair. Yunho scowls and starts to shove some of it out of his face.

“Oh,” Changmin says, staring up at him like he’s seen some sort of revelation, or something. “Oh, well, in that case--”

Yunho gives up on his bangs and tosses the sweater off somewhere, hoping like heck he doesn’t hit a lamp or something. Based on the price of the hotel, it’d probably cost an arm and a leg, or be some sort of family heirloom. “What the heck are you talking about?” he says, because Changmin is still staring up at him and muttering.

“You are menace, Jung Yunho,” Changmin says. He puts both hands at the collar of his shirt and starts to unbutton. “I pity the army man who tries to tell you can’t enlist.”

Yunho breathes hard through his nose and watches Changmin work his way down his chest. He’s tanned from Hawaii--made a huge fuss of walking around with his arms outstretched trying for an even, perfect glow. His shirt falls open and leaves Yunho practically drooling to get his mouth on him. “Changdol-ah,” he says. He’ll address the army thing in a moment. “How naked are you planning to get next show?”

Changmin’s hand stills somewhere around his navel, and for a second, the look on his face is sad, almost.

Yunho’s hip twinges sympathetically in response. “Shit, I mean, it’s fine. Your hips are good, too--”

Changmin leans up to kiss Yunho on the mouth again. He’s still not gone back to unbuttoning.

Yunho reaches for the hem of his undershirt, backing up so that he’s the one crouching overtop Changmin now, not just sprawling across him.

Changmin gets up on his elbows--the shirt is all the way undone and spilling around him like it’s a chiffon blouse not a flannel button down--and meets Yunho’s eyes. “No, don’t,” he says. His gaze is like glittering, gilded jewels.

Yunho feels it all the way down to his core. And then some. His ass leaks. Yunho wants to laugh about that, but his dick feels so hard it could cut the stones that are Changmin’s eyes, so he drops his hands off of the hem of his undershirt and starts to work on the buttons of his jeans instead.

Just brushing at the seam of his zipper has his hips stuttering and his cock throbbing and his ass going even wetter, it seems.

Changmin can smell it; his lashes flutter.

“Well, fuck,” Yunho says, starting to work the zipper down. “I’m wearing your boxers.”

Changmin takes a long, slow, inhale. “You’re _ruining_ my boxers.”

Yunho whines. “Changminnie,” he says.

Changmin drops down to the button of his own pants. “No,” he says.

Yunho can hardly look away from him when he lifts up to work the pants down his hips. “What?”

“Don’t look at me like that,” Changmin continues, kicking the offending garment away and off the bed. “Take your jeans off.” He throws in the command haphazardly, one hand working into his own boxers (they’re not Yunho’s, like Yunho’s definitely wearing Changmin’s, Yunho notes).

Yunho swallows and does just that, trying not to crumple too obviously at the show going on underneath him.

Changmin’s kept the shirt and the boxers and just appears to be working the base of his dick, rubbing at the pulse of his knot with his eyes closed and sweat dewing all of his beautiful, exposed skin.

Yunho tips forward a little in his haste to get his jeans off and Changmin steadies him with his free hand. Yunho moans, drops his forehead into the center of Changmin’s chest, and stares down at the up-and-down of it while he finally manages to get both legs free of the jeans. He kicks them away to join the rest of their clothes, then winces when his pants audibly connect with something.

Changmin’s head lifts. “Lamp,” he says. “How cliché.”

“God, shut up,” Yunho says, still staring down at Changmin’s stomach. If he dips his head further, he can see the trail of hair disappearing down to his knot. Yunho swallows.

Changmin releases his dick to put his hand in Yunho’s hair, hard, with tight, grasping fingers.

Yunho can practically smell him.

It makes his eyes cross.

“No,” Changmin says.

Yunho twists a little in his grip so that he can look at him, which puts them dick to dick again, but Yunho isn’t complaining.

Changmin is. His hand goes tighter and his eyes go sharper and Yunho loves it so much that he it feels like if he wanted, if he let himself float just a tad higher, he could go over without so much as a stroke.

But Changmin’s eyes say not to, so Yunho just breathes.

“No,” Changmin says again. Yunho gets the sense he’s not talking about Yunho’s almost orgasm. “You don’t get to do that.”

Yunho blinks. “Do what.”

Changmin lets go of Yunho’s head and stares balefully back at him.

Yunho darts his gaze down to Changmin’s still covered dick hopefully.

Changmin’s breath hisses in this throat. “Stop that also,” he says.

Yunho _blinks_ at him. He’s not above whining. “Changdol-ah--”

“The army tried to tell you you couldn’t enlist because you can give me babies and you were ready to spit in their face over it,” Changmin gets out in one great rush finally, cheeks bright red. “You’re going to go anyway and be _glorious_ \--”

“Erm, Changdol, you are too--”

“I want your _dick_ in me, Yunho-yah,” Changmin says. “You don’t get to look at me like that instead.”

Yunho is starting to figure out where these things are going, but his brain is still stuck on Changmin’s hand in his hair and Changmin’s hand on his dick and Changmin’s dick, hard, knot pinking, and so easily, perfectly there.

All Yunho would have to do would be take him by both hips and sink down just a tad and he could put his mouth on him, try to see if he could get all the way up to the knot while Changmin bit off curses at him and tried not to let it show too desperately how much he wanted it.

“Yunho-hyung!” It appears Changmin is not above begging at all. “You are not _listening_ to me.”

Yunho meets his eyes full on. “I’m just looking at you, Changminnie,” he says. His toes curl in the comforter and he starts to slide his way down.

Changmin grabs him by the hair with that same right hand--then seems to see the error in this. “Yunho-hyung!” He’s whining, now.

Yunho risks a small smile at him. “You can still have my cock after my mouth, Changdol-ah,” he says. The trickle of slick in the seam where his thigh meets his ass belays how he feels about this, but Changmin is too far gone to notice or care.

He makes a punched, moaning sort of noise, and it’s almost too easy for Yunho to finish his slink down to mouth at the head of his cock.

“Fuck you,” Changmin says above him. He’s loosened his stranglehold on Yunho’s hair, though, which is as good as acquiescence.

Yunho still stills above him, careful just to breathe. “I mean, if you want, but I sort of thought you wanted the opposite--”

“Yes, _fuck you_ ,” Changmin says again.

Yunho tilts his head.

“Hyung, I don’t mean it literally but I swear to fuck if you do not put your mouth on me--”

“But I thought you just wanted me to fuck you,” Yunho tries to say, secretly pleased. He was always going to ask, because you always need to ask, but Changmin has taken the need away from him.

“I am going to put you on your front and keep from knotting you for the whole fucking _night_ \--” snarls Changmin.

“When I fuck you you won’t be knotting me either,” he says breathlessly, peeling down Changmin’s boxers.

Changmin lifts his hips and loses his shirt and all the while keeps fingers palming Yunho’s hair. “No,” he says. “Not your ass, anyway.”

There’s a beat.

Yunho looks down, so turned on he could practically sob for it, and swallows. “Fuck,” he says.

When he looks up, Changmin is staring down at him with those beautiful, glittering eyes. “Around my cock, next time,” he says.

He lets go of Yunho’s hair and traces an index finger along the bob of Yunho’s throat.

Yunho swallows again, just to make sure.

Changmin’s pupils expand.

“Mmmm,” Yunho says. “What is it you’re always saying to me, Changminnie?”

“If you make me practice that dance move one more time I’m going to get a divorce and leave you for Minho?” Changmin says promptly.

Yunho drops down to rest his cheek against Changmin’s cock, grinning when it jumps against his skin. The tip is leaking, making a mess of Yunho’s jawbone, and Changmin just stares and stares and barely seems to remember to breathe.

Yunho gives in and humps against his shin a few times.

He gets a little lost in it, grinds forward a few more times until he closes his eyes, and only opens them when Changmin makes a tiny whimper of protest from above him.

The other man is still as the grave when Yunho looks up, cock standing proud and firm and knot a lot farther along than Yunho was expecting. He’s got his hips to the bed and not moving at all, though, and Yunho looks up at his perfect eyes and perfect mouth and his probably-too-large-to-be-perfect ears and thinks he ought to reward good behavior like that.

He drops a kiss to the tip of Changmin’s dick.

“Fuck!” Changmin swears, his head falling back against the bed and his legs finally shifting restlessly against the bed. “Yunho-hyung--”

“It’s funny how I’m hyung when you want something from me, Changmin-ah,” Yunho says, right up against Changmin’s cock.

Changmin swears some more and twists some more but his hips stay perfectly, amazingly still.

“How do you decide which one I am?” Yunho asks.

Changmin weaves his fingers through Yunho’s hair again. “Hyung is for me,” he says quietly, in explanation.

Yunho thinks that over. He gets it, he finds. He feels like people would think it would be the informality that Changmin likes, but it’s Yunho who likes it. Yunho who ends up raw and red over it, because of Changmin putting his pretty mouth up against Yunho’s ear and calling him _Yunho-yah_ like the equals they really are when he puts his cock in him. Changmin goes breathless and strung thin and groans out ‘hyung’ in a way that should ruin the word for anyone else, but somehow doesn’t.

Yunho gets it.

“Yunho-yah,” Changmin moans out, in counter to Yunho’s thoughts, and in counter to Yunho’s realization. “If you don’t put your mouth on me right this instant--”

“You’ll flip me over and refuse to knot me the whole night, I know, Changminnie, Hyung heard the first time,” Yunho says, and grins, and puts his mouth on Changmin before he can get so much as an earful. He pulls off after only two seconds. “But you’re not going to be able to knot my mouth and I think I deserve one after I do this for you--”

Changmin makes an aborted, thrashing move, and somehow manages to yank on Yunho’s hair without forcing him down on his cock at the same time. “Yunho-hyung!”

Yunho stares down at him in a daze. “You’re amazing, Changminnie-yah,” he breathes. “You’re so good.”

Changmin finally lifts his head up so that he can glower at Yunho.

Yunho settles a hand around the base of his cock and presses into the skin of his knot until Changmin sobs, eyes staring down at Yunho with a hopeless, beautiful sort of love. “I should reward you for that,” Yunho decides finally.

And he does, gratuitously, until Changmin is yanking on his hair in warning, and Yunho comes off his cock to watch him have half of an orgasm, painting the skin of Yunho’s throat and ruining the undershirt irrecoverably.

“Changmin-ah,” Yunho says, aiming for disappointed, and trying oh so hard not to show how very overcome he is. Somewhere around the time Changmin started fucking his cock into his mouth Yunho thinks he came, rocking into Changmin’s thigh like a teenager. He really hopes Changmin didn’t notice. “You’ve made a mess,” Yunho tells Changmin. It’s very hypocritical. He keeps his amusement to himself as well. “I liked this shirt.”

“It’s an undershirt,” Changmin says finally.  

His cock looks red and swollen and unfinished, but Yunho keeps his and Changmin’s hands away from his knot with the practice of three years.

He shucks out of the shirt, then slinks back up Changmin’s body so that they’re face to face. “I still liked it. Anyway, I didn’t tell Hosik-hyung to leave lube,” he says quickly, before Changmin can figure out he’s moved and also that he’s said their manager’s name in bed. “So you’re going to have to put your fingers in me first if you want me to fuck you--”

Changmin snarls at him, going from half post-coital to furious in two seconds flat. “That sounds entirely _unfair_ ,” he tells Yunho, wrestling them around so that Yunho is the one on his back now. “You’ll come.”

Yunho whimpers.

“You’ve already come _once_.”

So he did notice. Yunho whines up at him and kicks off his boxers

“You can just fuck me afterwards,” Changmin continues, and waits the three seconds it takes Yunho to realizes he has to vocalize it--

“I overheard Hyung say they were going to make us ride a tandem bicycle tomorrow, though, so maybe we shouldn’t,” he blurts out, which isn’t the ‘yes’ Changmin is so clearly after, but is what he was thinking, regardless.

Changmin kind of collapses on top of Yunho in a huff, but it’s an amused, definitely laughing sort of huff. “Well, in that case.”

“I’m serious.” Yunho shifts around a little to try to get Changmin to go back to asking to put his dick in him. “I’ll be fine, though. I’m made for it.”

That makes Changmin tense, air leaving his lungs in a great gust, and he’s thrusting into Yunho before Yunho’s finished tracing the entirety of that action. “What--oh--”

“Don’t _say_ that,” Changmin moans.

“Say what?” Yunho says, because if saying whatever it is is going to get him this--Changmin already knotting but trying to get himself all the way in anyway because he wants it and he needs it and Yunho’s hands would probably be good but Yunho’s ass would be better and they both know it.

 “ _That_ ,” Changmin says. “You weren’t made for it--”

“Oh.” Yunho lets out a breath in a glorious, giddy rush. He puts his hands on Changmin’s ass and swears the skin under his is hotter on the left side, almost like his bite is reacting, is affirming. “But I am, though.”

“You’re more, though,” Changmin says, and he reaches down to press on his own knot, eyes pressing shut and mouth going open and that final wash of come making everything wet and sloppy--

Yunho’s instincts are screaming at him, lost in the sensation and the immediate leak, since Changmin hasn’t knotted him, Changmin _can’t_ knot him, only, Changmin can, now, because he’s gone small enough that on the next stroke he’s all the way in to the hilt, and Yunho clenches down even though he knows he shouldn’t.

“Fuck, God, Hyung, please,” Changmin says.

Yunho doesn’t even have it in him to tease him, just wraps both legs around his waist as Changmin slows and stop and just ends up inside him, chest heaving.

“You’re more than that,” Changmin says again finally. “You’re more than just made for me.”

Yunho leans up to press kisses to the point of his cheekbone. “I know,” he says, and he does. “But I am.” He can’t help but twist, can’t help but tug against the skin of Changmin’s knot, which shouldn’t be expanding but somehow seems to be, like whatever it was Changmin did to get them here really hadn’t counted.

Changmin sobs through another tiny pulse of an orgasm.

Yunho pets him and kisses him and loves him like nothing else. “I love you, Changmin-ah,” he says. “And I am made for you.”

Changmin opens bleary eyes. “And I’m made for you,” he tries instead, stubborn to the end.

Yunho doesn’t laugh at him. “Mmm,” he says.

Changmin glowers at him. “That’s not very nice,” he says. “I’m baring my soul to you.”

“I told you I love you,” Yunho says. “I started with I love you.”

“Whatever,” Changmin says.

Yunho leans up until he gets over himself and kisses him. “I get what you’re saying, though.”

Changmin pulls back.

“I think it’s sweet, Changdol-ah, that you think it’s hot when I love who I am,” Yunho says.

Changmin stares at him with pink striping his cheeks for all of two seconds, then tries to get away in utter earnest, now. He can’t. They’re gone tied for good now, without any thrusting involved. Yunho hasn’t come again, but he’s fine with that. They have fifteen minutes. A lot can happen in fifteen minutes.

“Yunho-hyung!” Changmin says, still embarrassed.

“What,” Yunho says, flippant and pleased. “Isn’t that what you were trying to tell me, earlier?”

Changmin’s eyes dart across his face like he’s both reading Yunho’s life story and like he’s trying to rewind back past both orgasms. “Yes!” he decides finally. “But you don’t have to be such an embarrassing sap about it!”

Yunho leans up to kiss him on the mouth again. “But I do, Changminnie,” he says. “And you love it.”

Changmin stares down at him like he can’t quite believe this, darts a look down to where they’re tied together as if to say, ‘why do you always do this when I can’t get away’ (Yunho leans up to kiss him again like ‘because you can’t get away, duh’), and then deflates down onto Yunho’s chest. “I do,” he admits quietly. “So very much, you absolute asshole.”

Yunho pets through his sweaty, damp hair and hums. “Love you too,” he says.

Changmin is silent, but after a few seconds, presses the tiniest of kisses to the skin of Yunho’s chest.

Yunho smiles.

\--

They share the shower because they need one before their handlers arrive to take them back on set to finish what they couldn’t film the day before, and Yunho washes between Changmin’s shoulder blades with far too much cheer for their early morning.

Changmin takes the scrub down with half closed eyes, still clearly half asleep. “Why are you so happy?” he says.

“Because when we get home I get to call the South Korean military and shout at them,” Yunho says happily.

Changmin turns around so that he can stare more fully at him through wet lashes and half-shampooed hair.

“And you like that,” Yunho says. “You like it when I shout at them.”

“I like you,” Changmin corrects politely. He reaches out to brush make believe suds away from the corner of Yunho’s mouth.

Yunho grins back at him so hard it feels like his face might get permanently stuck. He leans forward to peck Changmin on the mouth one more time, and also to finish rinsing the conditioner from his hair. “Also, I wasn’t kidding about the tandem bicycle thing,” he says quickly, before darting free of Changmin’s hold on his hips and booking it across the bathroom.

“What! Hyung! No!” Changmin’s voice comes after him, raised in horror. “Hyung!”

Yunho grabs a towel and starts toweling off frantically, as he hears Changmin turn off the water and come after him. They’re going to get caught chasing each other around a hundred and twenty thousand yen a night hotel room naked and dripping water everywhere at this rate.

“I let you put _four fingers in me last night, Hyung_!” continues Changmin. “What do you mean you weren’t joking about the tandem bicycle?”

Yunho finishes with the towel and throws it back in Changmin’s face. He cackles a little. “Oops?” he says.

The towel peels away from Changmin’s face in what feels like slow motion.

Yunho goes shivery and pleased with want. “Oh,” he says.

Changmin latches onto that like a man possessed. “I’ll show you ‘oh,’” he snarls.

Neither of them are particularly pleased about the tandem bike mission card. It helps, of course, that Hosik-hyung has to run alongside them both times, however.

\--

_To me, Changmin is… home. Even when I am doing solo activities, as I have a place like Changmin to return to, I am able to work hard._

_\--_ [ _Jung Yunho, September 16th, 2017, Anan Magazine_ ](http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sq8uet)

\--

end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :') It's over everyone we made it! Thank you all so much again. Please stay tuned for the one shots that come after this--they'll be going up one after another Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. ALSO ARE YOU ALL EXCITED FOR A-NATION CAUSE I AM.
> 
> I can't wait to read your final comments :').
> 
> [Tumblr masterpost](http://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/177303308610/right-now-you-and-i-are-clumsy-but-youre) || [Twitter masterpost](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1032580894811451392)


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